


Tinted Windows and TV Guides

by stitchy



Series: TV Guide Universe [1]
Category: IT (1990), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Catholic Eddie, Childhood Friends, Closeted Character, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miniseries ONLY, New York City, No Supernatural Elements, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, Romance, Toxic Parent-Child Relationship, virgin eddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: “Actually, that’s why I called,” Richie says, coming to a rare-for-him pause. “I- uh, wanted to make sure it was okay if I hired you again.”Eddie feels a little breathless. “Yeah, of course. Why not?”Richie makes an uncertain sound on the other end. “I thought maybe you felt like things... went too far.”- No Clown AU where limo driver Eddie and celeb Richie are childhood friends who once again cross paths! -
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: TV Guide Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974025
Comments: 89
Kudos: 315





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I guess in addition to being a No Clown AU, this is an AU where Johnny Carson keeps The Tonight Show on the east coast for it’s run. I got too deep into writing before realizing TTS had moved to Hollywood at this time. Does this imply that in miniseries canon/IRL Pennywise’s negative energy was responsible for the relocation? Yes. Don’t @ me.

Some people are easy to please- Eddie’s in-house mechanics at Kaspbrak Limos, for instance. He can make a trip out to Home Depot for a new shop vac, unrequested and pretty much make their week. His mother, though. The only people who have a vacuum that might solve her kind of problem are the Ghostbusters.

Eddie steps back into the front office from the garage and hangs the keys he used for his shopping run on their designated peg. Myra checks for him over her shoulder, then twists in her little wheeled chair, crossing her arms.

“She called again?” Eddie winces.

Myra blinks her eyes like its an effort not to roll them. “I _think_ she called, but she might have just been shrieking out her window so loud that the sound traveled all the way here.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Eddie promises. “I’m sorry, she shouldn’t yell.”

Of course, Myra has heard it all before. She just sighs and turns back to her desk. “And there’s a client you might wanna take yourself that called about a long job, last minute,” she says. There’s a little note pad by her phone with _Wed AM to Sat AM_ written out in her looping script and a number below. She rips off the page and offers it to Eddie.

“Sheesh, tomorrow morning is last minute, yeah,” Eddie agrees. Usually they require a week’s notice on extended bookings, especially if a client has a preference in car.

Myra’s got the schedule for the company mapped out on a chart before her, and she traces down the columns with her short, practical-yet-pink polished nails to find availability. “It’d be a cobble of two or three cars,” she points out.

“Who’s this?” Eddie looks at the note in his hand.

There’s no name to go with the number. As owner of the company, being the whipping boy of some spoiled starlet is below his pay grade. Usually Myra hands off those types to his more indulgent drivers who don’t mind getting bossed around on a Fifth Ave spending spree if the whipping hand comes attached to a nice figure. Really, Eddie only drives occasionally, these days. He likes to keep his schedule open for covering call-outs and cherry picking special clients.

“He sounded kinda familiar, but I didn’t catch it. He said he knows you,” Myra shrugs. “He asked that _you_ call him back to say hi, even if we couldn’t take the booking.”

“Huh.” Eddie rubs the extra long number under his thumb. That’s a hotel extension maybe. Probably a repeat client, hoping against hope for a favor. “Well, I’ll let you know,” he tells Myra, and heads through the door to his private office.

Eddie drops into his chair and takes a fortifying breath before punching in his own home number first. It rings and rings, only prolonging his weariness. He’d like to just go home already, but if he turns up without a call, Myra will be accused of not passing along Ma’s messages and she’ll become even more hostile. That’s how he lost his last receptionist, so Eddie goes through the placating motions, waiting out the recording of his own mild voice, once again. Of course, Ma would pitch a fit if he didn’t pick up until she declared herself to the answering machine like this. 

_“...3327. We’re not in right now to receive your call, but after the tone, please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and we will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.”_

The beep wakes Eddie from his stupor. Sometimes if he spits it out quick enough, he can get it out before she can pick up. Talking to her will only slow him down getting back home like she wants, anyway.

“Hi, it’s me, I got your call. I’m wrapping up things at the office, now. See you in-“

The phone clicks on the other end. “-Eddie?”

He sighs. “Yeah, Ma. Just wanted to check in with you before I take off.”

“But Myrna said you’d already left!” Ma wails, right on cue. Eddie pulls the receiver away from his head. “That was hours ago and it doesn’t take _hours_ to get home from your office, I’ve been worried _sick-“_

“It’s _Myra_ , not ‘Myrna’,” Eddie corrects absently. Referring to people respectfully is second nature in this hospitality-adjacent industry, of course. “-And I left to run an errand before finishing for the day.”

“You told me you weren’t booked tonight,” Ma grouses.

It’s always black and white with her. Either he’s booked or he ought to be available. He’s in tip top shape, ready to bend to her every whim, or he must be coming down with something. If he’s not behaving as she expects, he’s ‘not himself at all’. Eddie’s not sure who else she imagines he might be, or if this Not Eddie guy she’s so afraid of is actually such a bad egg. Mostly he just laughs at things she doesn’t find appropriate.

Eddie bites his tongue to keep from scoffing, now. “It’s seven o’clock,” he points out, evenly. Hardly ‘late’ for someone who regularly works to midnight. “If I say goodbye now, I’ll be back in time for _Jeopardy._ I just have one more call to make.”

Ma likes having a promise to hold him to, if only to have a clear cut complaint to point at later, so she lets him go. They can have it out about her yelling at his employees when he gets home and said employee isn’t waiting on the other side of the door for him to finalize tomorrow’s schedule. He’s not the only one due to call it quits for the day, and he’d like it if she didn’t quit altogether.

Eddie dials the mystery number next, staring at the paper it’s written on like it will respect him for making confident eye contact.

This time the phone only rings once before being answered by a lugubrious voice. “Gooooood evening,” he croons, across at least four notes.

“Hello, this is Edward Kaspbrak, of Kaspbrak Limos returning your call,” Eddie says, barely having to shift from the service-like tone he uses with Ma.

 _“Eddie_. Eddie Kaspbrak. The man, the myth, the leg span of a miniature pony!”

“Uh?” Eddie is plenty tall in his adulthood, _thank you._ Did he accidentally dial a wrong number and now he’s being reverse prank called? “I’m- I’m sorry,” Eddie stammers. “Did you not call me?”

“Do I have the pleasure of addressing _Eddie Spaghetti?”_

Goosebumps break out up both his arms and down the back of his neck. “No one’s called me that since I got fed up and flipped my lunch tray on Richie Tozier in junior- _oh my gosh.”_

The man on the other end hoots a familiar laugh. “I had to go to History with a carton of milk down my pants looking like I wet myself! That sure showed me...”

“Well, I’ll be!” Eddie can see him now, the hybrid mental image of the goofy boy he knew in school and the larger than life TV star he absolutely did not. Unless Eddie was actively looking at him in a magazine or show, somehow he always envisions the adult version in his old taped up glasses and untucked shirt. “Richie! Wow,” he blinks. “It’s been years!”

“I’d think a man in your line of business oughta know- it’s not the years, it's the miles!”

“Either way! Gosh!” Eddie sits back in his chair, shocked but smiling. “I’ve seen you around, of course, but I never imagined you’d remember me...”

They’d been good friends before they left Derry, but _Richie_ was the memorable personality. He was the one whose name would be up in lights, if he had to steal a ladder and a string of Christmas decorations and fix it up himself. Eddie was just one of the admiring crowd, on the ground.

“I know, I know!” says Richie. “I had no idea where you landed after we split for college, buddy, or I woulda looked you up a long time ago!”

“How’d you find me now?” Eddie asks. It’s a wider world than he realized when they first left Maine. It’s rare he runs into anyone from the state, let alone his hometown these days, and the odds of finding _Richie_ of all people...

He laughs on the other end like he’s just as dumbfounded. “I just needed a car!” he says. “The network I’m working for set me up with a rental that turned out to be a dud, and the guy was such a snot about it, I figured I’d ask the concierge for another company, and the list they gave me had limos on it, and I saw your name, and-“ Richie stops to breathe, and huffs in disbelief. _“Kaspbrak._ Felt like a bit of a long shot, I mean- you can’t be the only one ever! But I saw it, and it was like my heart got sling shot through a kaleidoscope time machine.”

Eddie gulps. “I- I know what you mean, I-“

Well, he’s always felt a kind of stretched out longing for the good old days when he saw Richie in things, but never before followed with this happy snap back into shape, falling back into place like they used to be. He’s real, this time, not just moving light on a screen! He knows Eddie is on the other side.

“But you’re _here_ , in New York?”

“Spaghetti Land, ho!”

Oh, no no. Not so fast, there, pal.

“Ugh, I thought we settled that score,” Eddie grumbles. “Where are you?”

“The Washington Square. Room 310,” Richie supplies with a deep chuckle. “Why? You wanna help me loot the place? Bring a screwdriver, the TV is bolted down.”

“Please hold,” Eddie says, brightly. He hits the transfer button to buzz Myra’s desk.

“Yeah, Ed?”

“Go ahead and book me out until Saturday morning with whatever car is available,” he tells her.

“I could get you the stretch tomorrow?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter either way,” he assures her. “That’s all. Thank you Myra.”

“Good night!”

Eddie switches back over to the main line. “Thank you for ho-“

“You really did put me on hold, ya bastard!” Richie laughs. 

Eddie hums. “Mhmm. I just sent room service up to dump another tray on you.”

“Aww, c’mon!”

“I insisted on a fresh, hot red sauce, so I hope you’re not wearing white.”

“I could answer the door _au naturel,”_ Richie threatens.

Eddie grins. “Only if you don’t mind boiling off your bones.”

“Gosh, I’ve missed you,” Richie laughs. “Where did you _go?_ What have you been up to?"

“Ah, went to Hofstra first. Did a business degree there and worked in a garage on the side. Saved up. Set up a company out of Queens as soon as I could,” Eddie tells him, quickly. Sure, it was hard work building himself up, but it was mundane. Probably not very interesting to someone like Richie, who zips around from one zany project to the next. “Mostly I’ve been bumming around the same thirty-four square miles of city,” Eddie shrugs.

“Right there, all this time...” Richie tsks. “Oh, man. So!”

“So?”

“So, I know it’s last minute, but I do need a ride. And either way- even if _you’re_ too busy to drive me around personally,” Richie rambles, “I gotta see you again, if you have _any_ time, ya know. Socially!“

Eddie’s hand hits his desk like he’s playing Slap Jack. Even if he had another driver on the roster to offer, this is _his._ Who’d of known they’d spend so many years apart leading such different lives, only for them to intersect now in a perfect match of need and service.

“No, no, I can do it! I’m free-”

“If you’ll do it for free, then you should send that business degree back, Spaghe-“

“-uh oh!” Eddie cuts him off, frowning. “My rate _just_ went up.”

Richie snickers. “I can pay. Happy to. This is _perfect,”_ he beams through the phone. “You scratch my back, I’ll buy yours a new suit!”

Eddie laughs. “Okay. Have you got an itinerary?”

“Uh, yeah.” Richie can be heard creaking the springs of his hotel bed to get up, then rustling through papers. “First thing, I have brunch tomorrow with some NBC people at ten.”

“I’ll come get you at nine?”

There’s a clearing of throat, and then Richie drops his voice into a low rumble suited to singing the Blues. “I couldn’t smooth talk you into coming over right now, could I?”

Eddie’s mouth is almost faster than his mind. He almost blurts out a yes, and maybe if he was with Richie in person, that old _Shoot Now, Ask Questions Later_ effect he always had would have taken over, but he stops. “Right now?”

“I got a bottle of wine from Johnny Carson, a gift basket from Walkman, and some weapons-grade pasta sauce. It could be a real party!”

Eddie groans. If he hadn’t just promised Ma. If he had a little more warning! “I’m sorry, but I gotta take a rain check. I have to get back home tonight, I, uh...” Eddie trails off.

“Let me guess. _Mrs._ Kaspbrak?”

Well, not like Richie means. Eddie doesn’t want to leave him with the wrong impression. “Oh, no. I’m not married,” he sort-of clarifies.

“Me neither!”

“Really? What about that guest star lady with the perm? Monique? I thought you- you were engaged, I thought, so I assumed by now... _Well._ It’s your business- I shouldn’t...” The notion that it might be terribly gauche for Eddie to admit he sometimes reads the tabloids catches up with him and he loses steam. “Uhm- _speculate.”_

It sounds like Richie tries to stop a sneeze, the way he laughs. _“Mo?_ Aw, no, I'm just doing her a favor. Mo’s been trying to book some romantic leads, but the studio thinks shes a lesbian.”

“Why?” Eddie puzzles. She was very convincing, mooning after Richie, he thought.

“She’s a lesbian!”

“Oh.” Eddie simply cannot dwell on this development at the moment. Not with Richie on the line, anyway. He allows himself only one breath’s pause. “Well, I’m afraid I got such an early start this morning, I can hardly keep my eyes open as it is,” he tells Richie, truthfully.

 _“Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you,”_ Richie singsongs. “Alrighty, go recharge! We’ll light it up another night.”

Despite his noble intentions, after they say good night and Eddie hangs up, he thinks he’ll be lucky to sleep at all. For the rest of the evening, he can’t stop turning the phone call over and over in his mind. He drives home on autopilot, he doesn’t notice which leftovers he reheats for dinner, and he completely tunes out _Jeopardy_ , much to Ma’s disappointment.

“You should know all of this,” she scolds his lack of input. “It’s ‘In The News’!”

“Wuh?” Eddie looks up at the mesmerizing blue screen.

_Reagan, star witness, yadda yadda._

“Who is John Poindexter?” Eddie answers.

He doesn’t listen for Trebek to confirm, instead he keeps flipping through the TV Guide. Maybe there will be an article about Richie’s latest hit, or better yet, a picture. Something he can examine for evidence. Of course he always knew these sorts of things are fluff, not hard hitting journalism, but now more than ever he can’t help but wonder how much discrepancy there is between the public image and the man. Eddie knows how far he stretches the truth about himself, and there’s hardly anyone keeping tabs on him. Just Ma.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asks during the commercial break.

He glances up at her, watching him beadily, and he’s glad there’s no sign of Richie in the magazine after all. He doesn’t need an embarrassed blush to add fuel to the fire. “Nothing, I’m fine,” he says.

“Maybe it’s a headache. Or a sore throat,” she speculates. “You’re too quiet.”

But Eddie hasn’t felt quiet all evening. His reawakened heart pounds, _Richie Richie Richie._ He got to talk to Richie. He’s going to see Richie again. Richie, who he always carried a torch for- he knew that now. He’s grown since the last time they met and learned what that peculiar thrill Richie always gave him truly was. But while other people could forget about their unrealized childhood love and move on, all he had to do to reignite the flame was see a magazine on the rack while in line for groceries, or flip through the channels, and he was right back where he started. Seventeen, never been kissed, and bewildered that he should be on the verge of tears when they play ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’ on _Rick Shaw’s Saturday Hop_.

“I’m tired, is all, Ma. I’m gonna call it a night, I think.” Eddie puts his magazine aside and gathers up his glasses and the cup of water he’d brought into the den. 

“But we haven’t got to Final Jeopardy, yet!” Ma protests.

“I’ve got a long day tomorrow, so I’d better rest,” Eddie tells her, kissing her cheek goodnight on the way past.

She catches his wrist. “Take your temperature! If it’s off at all-“

“Right,” Eddie sighs.

“Will I see you at breakfast?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Eddie, If you’re not feeling yourself by then, I’ll drive you to the ER.”

“Thank you.” He pats her hand and she finally lets him go.

It’s easier not to fight her on it, really. There’s a fifty/fifty chance she’ll check up on him, so he stops in the bathroom on his way up. He dunks the thermometer in the bottle of rubbing alcohol to sanitize it and leaves it open while he takes his temperature and washes his face. The smell reminds him of being a boy with a fever, when Ma would dilute some alcohol on a wet rag and sponge his back to cool him off. He hadn’t minded being coddled back then, but now her constant hovering sometimes makes him second guess himself. Eddie twists the end of the thermometer and stares at himself in the mirror, looking a little pale. Maybe he _is_ out of sorts, and the heart racing he’s been experiencing is a red flag.

In the course of trying to avoid giving Ma something to fixate on, he’s never been particularly in touch with his body. If he doesn’t feel any particular way, he doesn’t need tending. On days when his schedule is blown off course, he doesn’t notice his hunger from skipping lunch until prompted, and he is notorious amongst his drivers for being frugal with the climate control in a car. Until sweat actually beads down his brow or his teeth chatter, he just sort of goes with the flow. He will ask constantly if other people are comfortable, though, aware of his unawareness.

When time’s up, the thermometer says he’s at a perfect ninety-eight degrees, but Eddie goes ahead and takes some Tylenol, just in case.  
  
  


-  
  
  


Richie has already settled up with Myra when Eddie gets to the garage to pick up a car the next morning, so he heads into the city without much fuss. The Washington Square Hotel is right where he left it, off 8th Street, across from the park. It’s been zhuzhed up quite a bit since he first came to New York, so instead of playing home to struggling Village artists on the rise, now the hotel is more likely to host their well-to-do admirers, making pilgrimage. Ordinarily he would notify the concierge and wait out front, but something tells Eddie not to stand on ceremony. He already knows the room number, so he parks and blows right past the front desk, swift steps across the classy black and white tile.

Before he knocks, he can hear Richie singing The Rascals to himself inside, most enthusiastically the _doo doo wah, ahh_ parts. That was always his favorite bit of any song back in the day. It seems a shame to interrupt, but Eddie’s excitement bubbles over just as delightedly as Richie’s tune.

“Knock knock,” Eddie taps the door.

Richie pitches his voice up, ladylike. “Who is it?”

“Boo.”

Richie’s already laughing as he draws closer to answer. “Boo who?”

The door opens and there he is, in real life. _His_ Richie. Still tall and rusty haired. Eddie can see the shape of the boy he knew’s face there, easier than he ever can from a picture or a screen. Finally those bright eyes he remembers looking up into, admiring, can see him back again. They crinkle in the corners as he smiles wide, and it’s better than ever to be the one he smiles for.

“Aww, don’t cry, it’s just a joke,” Eddie grins.

“I’ll say!” Richie pounces, throwing himself at Eddie and wrestling him into a bear hug. “I can’t _believe_ those sons of guns in marketing sent the better looking guy they’re hiring _instead_ to come give me the boot!”

Eddie laughs into Richie’s shoulder, just letting it all happen. “Oh, c’mon!”

“I’m serious!” Richie pulls back and fixes Eddie on the spot by the shoulders, visibly tallying him up. Eddie has seen Richie plenty since Derry and adjusted his mental image, but it’s been over twenty years for him. “Would you look at that?” Richie says, squinting at him like Popeye, one eye at a time, then the other. “You’re gorgeous, Eddie! How come you’re not the one on TV? I’d much rather watch you sell a hibachi!”

“It’s just the uniform,” Eddie demures. He smooths his hands down the slim black tailoring. The sober color and no-nonsense cut of livery are striking while everyone else's dress codes keep loosening up, these days. 

Richie reaches up and gives his hair a ruffle, which is a more successful nuisance than it used to be since Eddie stopped shellacking it in Brylcreem. “The suit’s a good look, all right! You look like the lovechild of Illya Kuryakin and Barbie, doll face!”

“You haven’t changed at all,” Eddie beams back at him. Richie’s always been everybody’s fawning best friend like this. Ladies’ man, man’s man, funny man. No wonder he’s had such a good run in show business, being a natural born schmoozer. “Anywho. I’d love to stand here and lose track of the time, but we should get you to your meeting,” says Eddie.

“Brunch!” Richie claps his hands together and looks around for the essentials he’ll want with him. He starts filling his pockets with odds and ends from his luggage, open on the valet at the foot of the bed. Sunglasses, _novelty_ glasses, a pack of cards, and a kazoo. Of course.

“I looked at your schedule- after that we should have plenty of time to catch up over lunch before your recording session.” Eddie coughs. “Uh, if you’re still hungry after brunch, I guess. And you wouldn’t rather do some shopping, or-“

“Are you kidding?!” Richie closes his suitcase finitely and crosses to the open door where Eddie waits. “I can’t think of _anything_ in all of New York I’d want to buy, more than I’d want to watch you eat lunch,” he says.

“That’s good, because you forgot your wallet,” Eddie points out.

Richie whirls around to snatch it off the desk before they leave. “Oopsie daisy.”  
  
  


-  
  
  


After his brunch, Richie’s looking for the exact opposite of the grandeur of the Rainbow Room, so Eddie takes him to one of his favorite hole in the wall joints, a few blocks over. The faded blue awning no longer bears a legible name and it was much too Greek for Eddie to remember it anyway. He just ushers Richie inside and squishes into the peeling naugahyde booth opposite him. The tables are sprinkled in unswept Kalas and pepper, and the fluorescent lighting is on the fritz, so most people coming in get their order for take-out. They enjoy relative privacy while they chat and eat, or Eddie does, anyway. Richie builds a little teepee village out of pita wedges and scribbles on doors and windows with ketchup.

“-And if reading Chaucer and _The Decameron_ sounds boring, _actually_ \- the Lit major was me goofing off!” Richie says, in the middle of his spiel about his college years. He bites down a fry to make a campfire log in scale with the rest of his little scene. “I started in Journalism, ‘cause that was the closest my parents would let me get to radio.”

“Oh, right!” That’s what Richie had left town saying, at least. Given where he ended up, that would have remained Eddie’s assumption.

“-But,” Richie sighs, “Getting my first big article on the Gibraltar Referendum slashed to ribbons put a kibosh on that.”

“They didn’t like your jokes? Well, there's a first time for everything,” Eddie teases.

“My professor red penned all my best bits!” Richie laments. “Said it ‘wasn’t germane’, and I said- ‘No, you’re right. This is between Spain and Britain!’”

Eddie giggles. “I’m sure you made it more interesting than it had any right to be.”

“What about you, Boss Man?” Richie waves a fry at him. “Did you get right down to Business?”

“Ah, no.” Eddie takes a sip of his drink, and thinks how to put it. Richie just spent the better part of an hour waxing poetic about student activism and anti-war protest, and getting stoned and putting on _Shakespeare in the Park._ “Well- you know how I wanted- well, I _always_ wanted to do something in transportation,” he says. “Get away. Travel. See things...”

“Trains, planes, and automobiles,” Richie says sunnily.

“Right.” Eddie bites his lip. “Well, I wanted to be a commercial pilot, but we couldn’t afford flight school. So I- well there’s always one way to get it paid for...”

“-Exotic dancing!” Richie guesses.

Eddie snorts, then shakes his head and looks down at the table. “Uh, so- I tried enlisting.”

There’s a clunk and a total collapse of two of Richie’s teepees as his fist falls to the tabletop in surprise. _“What?!”_

“If you were willing to fly helicopters, the Army was the easiest way to get the training!” Eddie defends. “I- I didn’t want to hurt anybody, I just couldn’t _stay_ in Derry. I told Ma what I was doing, and she broke down, and then when I had to give a medical history it all... fell apart. They wouldn’t take me, and finally, I really _looked_ at it all, Richie.”

When Eddie peeks up at him, he’s met with a look he’s never seen on his face before. He’s not disgusted, just so obviously sad. “Oh,” Richie’s face falls. “Oh, _Eddie.”_

“All the illnesses my mother exaggerated, all the things she convinced herself I was suffering through... Do you remember when I broke my arm?” Eddie asks.

 _"You_ didn’t break it, that creep kid did,” Richie growls.

“Well same difference,” Eddie sighs. “Ma made the doctor say I had rickets, like it broke ‘too easy’. And _you_ know- I’d get strep once a year but I always bounced back from it quick enough-“

“Sure,” Riche nods. He spent hours and hours of his young life haunting the Kaspbrak doorstep, waiting for Eddie to be allowed to play again.

“But she’d _still_ keep me home and baby me!” Eddie seethes. “Well, at some point, she bullied them into saying I got rheumatic fever from it, and had heart damage and hearing loss! All my childhood, anything she could imagine, she put me on a drug for. It’s a wonder I _didn’t_ have a hole in my gut by eighteen! For Christ’s sake- to keep her happy, my ‘asthma’ prescription is _camphor water!”_

Richie squirms. “Yeah...”

The resigned tone of his voice says it all. What might have been a revelation to Eddie, stuck in the middle of it, might not have been as difficult to see when standing out on that doorstep.

“You knew, right? That she was like that?”

Richie doesn’t deny it. His usually animated face is very still, so still Eddie can see he’s not even considering making a joke. “She loved you, Eddie- just... She doesn’t know when to let go,” he says.

Eddie laughs. Well, he has to get that from somewhere, he supposes. 

“She was sick,” he tells Richie. Complicated as it is, it was also that simple. “So I had to take care of her. Maybe I could’ve found a new doctor to clear me, but I didn’t. And I couldn’t join the railroad, or even leave the state unless she came with me.”

Watching Richie acknowledge that with a frown shakes something loose. A feeling of loss washes over Eddie. A sudden certainty that he was wrong, when for so long he told himself he took the _only_ option. He loses himself, staring into the ice at the bottom of his empty soda cup and feels just as cold.

“How is she now?”

“Hmm?” Eddie looks back up at Richie. “Oh, I- I guess the same. She still lives with me. I play along.”

 _Still._ He spent over twenty years sacrificing himself to her- for what?

“Are _you_ okay?”

That’s what Richie says. Not _What’s the matter with you?_ Or _You must be coming down with something._ It’s been so long since he was invited to have a say in his own well-being.

Eddie blinks a bit, thinking. He likes his work. He likes being able to escape to the city and discovering all its little holes like this. He likes being here with Richie, even if it dredges things up. That feels kind of good, too- like a relief.

“I think I will be, yeah.”

Eddie holds on to that optimism as he ferries Richie around the rest of the day and brings it home. Though Ma starts trouble with him, same as always, he finds some amusement in reinstating Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day, and joking back at _Newhart._ It’s a beautiful late spring night, so he opens a few windows around the house. The fresh air and attitude are good. Maybe if he felt like this more often, she’d do better- or maybe- if they weren’t constantly feeding on each other’s weaknesses, they’d both be better off.

He does a load of laundry before bed, and rediscovers the note with Richie’s number at the hotel. He toys with the idea of calling just to shoot the breeze, but decides he should let him rest his voice after a long day of recording. Instead he spends too long picking a shirt to set aside for when he goes out with Richie on Friday. 

He doesn’t know why yet, but he doesn’t pull down the bags full of next season's clothes from his closet to unpack and air out like he was planning to.  
  
  


-  
  
  


Friday, Richie is filling in on _The Tonight Show,_ which is the main engagement all his other activities have been clustered around. He and Eddie agree to a somewhat lazy start to the day, keeping in mind how late taping and the surrounding festivities will go. A leisurely breakfast at home with Ma gives Eddie plenty of time to break his overnight absence to her. He stops at the office to pick up a car, and makes sure to alert Myra, too.

“I’ll be staying in the city after the show,” he tells her. “I already booked a room, and told my mother not to expect me back until noon tomorrow.”

“Noon tomorrow,” Myra makes a note. “Got it. Did you get a parking voucher?”

“Yep.”

She traces down the roster to see what the next booking is for his vehicle and taps the column. “The Fleetwood isn’t spoken for again until... five o’clock.”

“Terrific, plenty of time to spare,” Eddie says.

Myra spins in her chair and watches him pick the keys off the peg board. “Hey, how come you never told us you grew up with this guy, huh?”

It’s not like driving celebrities is a rarity for Kaspbrak Limos. Maintaining pleasant relationships with them is encouraged and expected, but still the question catches Eddie off guard. He ‘knows’ the Cusacks and the Quaids, and even Mario Cuomo- but not like the depths to which he _knows_ Richie and Richie knows him back. Despite their time apart, their relationship is more foundational than he had remembered before this week. It touched on locked up parts of himself he hasn’t shared with friends in decades, let alone employees. No wonder he’s had an instinct to keep it private.

“We haven’t spoken in years,” Eddie shrugs.

Yet it’s like no time has passed at all.  
  
  


-  
  
  


Plenty of people have hired Eddie to drive them to prestigious appearances around New York. He’s no stranger to courtesy invites to galleries, tapings, political events, and on one memorable occasion, the dedication of a bridge. This is the first time he can remember someone offering him a ticket that they so fervently hope he’ll use, though. Richie bounces on his toes, watching Eddie check the information printed on the studio pass. It would have been too many bodies in the room for Eddie to sit in on fittings for a commercial, or dialogue for a cartoon appearance, but finally! A chance for Richie to really show off.

He dazzles the audience, at his customary breakneck speed.

“NASA was sorry to confirm that just as soon as they got it up, 1.5 billion dollar Hubble Telescope has already had an equipment failure. Though built to take detailed, color pictures of nebulae and supernovas from orbit, as you can see by this first image here, it looks like Hubble has retreated to the basement to play Pong. Hubby’s wife _Waffle_ withheld comment,” Richie grins. “Anyone can apply for time with the telescope, even amateurs, so I’m thinking of putting together a proposal, myself. We already know the _moon_ isn't made of cheese, but my local deli never has brie when I want it, and I’m open to alternatives.”

Eddie’s seat is close to the camera covering the host chair, so he convinces himself they catch eyes whenever Richie barrels it. His face is red hot, all show. He wonders if Richie can pick out his laugh from the crowd. He wonders if the people around him can tell the way his heart leaps when Richie tells a guest something like, _‘I said to a friend the other day...’._ That was Eddie! That’s the two of them, back at it again that electrifies the room like this. By the final applause his cheeks hurt from smiling.

Richie’s still revved up backstage afterward, in the car, and all the way to The Bitter End club. They bop along to the live music, while he keeps talking a mile a minute. 

“Did you know this guy’s first instrument was the dulcimer?” Richie thumbs back at the band.

Eddie shakes his head. He’s not as much of a sponge for trivia as Richie, former DJ. “I’m not positive I even know what that is!”

“It’s like a zither!” Richie mimes plucking strings as best he can while holding a drink.

Eddie laughs. “Why on earth was I picturing one of those piano things with the spinning bowls in it?”

“That’s a glass armonica! Speaking of glass...” Richie takes Eddie’s for a refill.

He loses track of just how many they have before stumbling back to the hotel, a block away. It’s a good thing he thought ahead to get a room, but before he can call it a night he’s got to check out the gift baskets from the studio that Richie’s so excited about. Someone has to save him from wolfing two gallons of popcorn all in one sitting, and Eddie’s already appointed himself Richie’s squire in every other way, all night. He set up jokes for him, opened doors and pressed buttons, and when Richie leans into him in the historic-yet-closet-sized elevator and asks to borrow his necktie, he provides that as well.

“Don’t warp it!”

“Bill me!” Richie says, tying it around his forehead.

“I stopped billing you when I parked the car.”

“How’s it look?” Richie air guitars.

“Oh, just like Springsteen.” Eddie giggles and tugs on his shirt sleeve. “You just gotta rip these off.”

“Don’t tempt me. Wait! No! _Do.”_

Eddie has to remind himself, over and over, what a joker Richie is. This isn’t really an invitation to tear his clothes off, no matter how close Richie looms to him, in the elevator, down the hall, and just inside the door of his room. He takes his jacket off when Richie does and kicks his shoes into a communal pile, pulse racing all the while. He feels like his heart’s on roller skates. 

Richie empties his pockets for the night, tossing a pack of cards on the bed. “Whaddaya say, Eddie, up for some Go Fish? Rummy? Bridge?”

“Old Maid?” Eddie suggests

“I know you are but what am I?” Richie shoots back.

“Hey! You’re the one who was complaining about the smoke at the club.”

“Because you were all-“ Richie makes a pinched-face impression of Eddie, fanning his hand in front of his face. “I thought it was time to head out!”

“Yes, it was _all_ me being fed up with the smoke. _Nothing_ to do with you having to stuff your fingers in your ears because the music was too loud.”

Richie gasps, affronted. “Are we _both_ dinosaurs?”

“Sorry to say!” Eddie sits on the bed and groans, pulling his knees around to sit cross legged. Even if he was a younger man, they’re not at all used to the rigors of late night clubs. 

Richie gets a hold of the loot from his various employers and pools it into the middle before climbing up himself. He grabs the remote from the nightstand too, and tosses it to Eddie.

“My ears are still ringing, you wanna put something on in the background?”

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie snatches it.

They start horking down gobs of caramel corn and dealing cards while Eddie aimlessly surfs the channels for something perky. He’s a bit too inebriated to be put off by the streak of blacked out channels that say only to ‘Call Front Desk For Menu’. He comes to sudden attention when he hits something unexpected on 61.

“Oh!”

There’s background music all right. Nondescript electric guitar grooves over the sight of a woman’s bare breasts jiggling as a man humps her from behind.

Richie looks up from dealing cards, eyebrows somewhere near his hairline. “Ahaha,” he chuckles. “That’s, uh, still looping from last night, huh?” He feebly reaches out to take the remote back from Eddie, but he doesn’t let go.

“Oh my goodness...” Eddie grimaces back at first, but then wobbles closer, curious.

Is that really how it looks? His imagination is only so vivid in his alone time, and it certainly never features a woman.

Richie clears his throat. “Ahh, c’mon, we’ve both seen it before! You’re talking to the guy who helped clean out Mr. Marsh’s garage with you!”

Eddie glances at him. “That was just, you know. Still pictures of women, it wasn’t- _well._ You could see a nude woman in an art museum, couldn’t you?” 

When Eddie looks back at the screen the couple is still jack-hammering away in a decidedly inartistic fashion.

“They might have a problem with you whacking off at the Met, though,” Richie points out.

Eddie tries squinting one eye until just part of it is in focus. If he holds up a hand to cover those distracting breasts, maybe- 

Nope. Still no.

“Well, I would never- not to something like- I wouldn’t watch anything like _this,”_ Eddie stammers. He senses Richie making another bid to take the remote and spare both of them. Somehow he feels like it would be worse to just gloss this over. “I mean! There’s nothing wrong with you,” he tells Richie. “With _it._ If you have. I just! I live with my mother and all. And I haven’t-“

Finally Richie laughs, relaxing. “Oh Billy Joel,” he sighs, “Cath-a-lick girls _do_ start much too late. Are you saying you _never_ watched a porno before!?”

Eddie looks down at the remote in his hands and swallows. “Well, I couldn’t bring that sort of thing home, and I don’t get far enough out to need to stay overnight someplace like this! I know there are adult theaters, but...”

He feels flustered and a little woozy from drinking, but most of all, Eddie feels like he has to be honest. Not about his feelings for Richie in particular, but generally. What’s the point of them reestablishing their friendship and getting to know each other again, otherwise? He turns to Richie, eyes frozen wide.

“I’d be too afraid to go anywhere that they show it,” he says. “With, uh, only the kind of people in it... the kind I like.”

It feels like Eddie’s heart just about stops, waiting for him to comprehend. Thankfully, Richie doesn’t let him dangle for long.

“You like men, you mean?”

Eddie can’t loosen up enough to nod, but somehow he can’t stop his mouth blabbing. “I- in theory. But you’ve seen the news. They- _men like me,_ they get sick and beat up. It’s not safe to be doing things with strangers and I don’t know anyone, so I can’t _trust_ anyone to try, and so I- of course I haven’t ever done... _anything.”_

For as much time as he’s spent resisting his mother’s anxieties, he’s ruled by them here. So many of those people are infected and spreading it and don’t know it, practically until they’re _dying._ Maybe it’s saved his life not to try- who’s to say? But certainly, it has made him very lonely.

Richie whistles through his teeth. “Sure, sure, I can see where you’re coming from...”

“It’s pathetic isn’t it?” Eddie huffs.

“Nah, no way!” Richie reaches across to squeeze his shoulder. “You’re fine.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“I’d call you lots of things you don’t like _Spaghetti Man,_ but ‘pathetic’ is not one of them.”

“And you don’t mind?”

Richie’s comforting hand rubs up and down his arm as he laughs. “Naw, man! Whatever floats your boat! Free love!”

Eddie’s eyes prickle with relieved tears. Of course, flower child Richie would take that attitude. He wouldn’t have an arrangement like he does with Mo otherwise.

“Okay,” Eddie sniffs. He wishes that Richie would hug him, hold him, maybe _more-_ but he’s so lucky to have such a good friend, as it is.

After a moment Richie points to the TV again. “You could go up another channel,” he says. “If you want to see what’s up.”

The hard plastic of the remote tacks in Eddie’s clammy hand. He could turn the TV off. He _could_ click back down a few, and let some late night horror movie play, that’d be just fine! But Eddie clicks up one channel, like Richie says.

One flesh colored image blips into another. Though the canned music is much the same as the previous, _this_ is different fare.

“You- you paid for this?” he asks Richie.

He shrugs. “Happy to share the wealth, pal.”

“Oh,” Eddie gulps, unable to look away.

Two men are having sex on a pinstriped couch in front of a wall of perfectly ordinary books, not so unlike the library in Eddie’s own home. One lays back with his hands on his heaving chest, as the other simultaneously pumps into him and strokes his oiled erection. If Eddie was feeling sort of slobbery from drinking before, that’s nothing compared to the way his mouth waters now. 

He chances a look at Richie, who’s gone back to shoveling popcorn into his face. He doesn’t seem fazed. He probably just ordered the wrong channel by mistake, and as luck would have it, Eddie came along to get his money’s worth.

Richie scoops another handful of popcorn and shakes it around in his palm. “Hey, Eddie! Did we say it care- _uh-_ mell, or carr-muhl when we were kids?” He tosses it back and munches. “I genuinely can’t remember.”

A little too distracted to answer automatically, Eddie overthinks it. “Isn’t it, _carr_ -uh-mell or _care_ -a-mell?” There’s three syllables, he thought. “Carmel? Cararr- _oh.”_

“I _know,_ right?” Richie shoves the giant tin at Eddie. “What about PJ’s?”

Eddie turns back around to get another handful of the caramel corn before Richie hogs it all. “Pajamas?” he offers.

“See,” Richie points at him. “You say it right! You say _pajahhhmas._ People out west say pa-JAM-as.”

Truth be told, they’ve both evened out their accents in the meanwhile, but Eddie enjoys their shared roots. “Well of course _we’re_ right and they’re wrong,” he assures Richie with a grin.

“We’re really not though,” Richie snorts. “Do you know how long it took me to get rid of my droopy A’s for radio? ‘Let me _ahhsk Mahhk,_ he’s in the _bahhthroom. Mahhk, ahh you comin’ to the pahhty?’_ No, not the ‘potty’, c’mon!”

“Ayuh!” Eddie laughs.

He digs out another handful of popcorn and forgets all about the TV when Richie finally picks up his hand of cards for Old Maid, fanning them all to get a look. Eddie scarfs his popcorn as quick as he can to check his own.

“Uh oh,” Richie narrows his eyes at Eddie. With only the two of them playing they know right away who has the leftover queen.

Eddie tries not to pay too much attention to her as he plucks out his pairs and throws them into the discard pile. “That’s what I get for suggesting the game...”

Their first round goes disappointingly quick, though Richie does get stuck with the queen after accidentally stealing her from Eddie. 

“What? Which card?” Richie holds it out when he’s down to just the one, flips it, and rubs it between his hands. “Gone! I don’t have her!” He shows his empty palms. “I win!”

Eddie shakes his woozy head at the trick. “Do it again.”

Richie brings the vanished card back and forth a few times. “You like that?”

“Slower!”

“I can’t do it any slower!”

“Just show me where it goes,” Eddie says, twisting to try and see under Richie’s hands, but he pulls them behind his back before Eddie can see the trick.

“Let me win the next game and I’ll show you!” Richie snickers.

“It doesn’t work like that!”

Eddie gathers up the cards again and gives them a shuffle as showily as he knows how- which he fears is very basic. Richie seems to enjoy his determination at any rate, and oohs and ahhs as he riffles. A second contested game of Old Maid leads to a third, and then of course- _War._

By then they’ve migrated from their original seats. Richie lounges on his side, while Eddie simply cannot keep his knees folded any longer. He stretches back against the headboard, viciously throwing down cards. He’s on a roll!

“One, two, three- woops that was two, _five,_ six!”

“D’ohhh!” Richie howls, surrendering his seven to Eddie’s jack. 

“Hand ‘em over!”

“Don’t you dare!”

Eddie dares, and in another two contests he’s won all the cards. He sits back, laughing at his good luck. “Had enough punishment?”

Richie narrows his eyes. “Not on your life, Kaspbrak!” He holds up a finger. “But first, a nature break.”

Without further ado, Richie rolls off the bed and retreats.

“I hope you have better luck in the _bahhthroom,”_ Eddie teases. He hasn’t had so much fun playing cards in ages. Ma doesn’t enjoy anything raucous or competitive, so usually it's just him and humdrum old Solitaire.

Eddie sighs, feeling quite cozy and content, for a moment. Then of course with Richie gone, the TV once more becomes the most animated thing in the room.

“You again,” he says, though it is a different couple, at this point.

They lay in what is probably also a hotel room, though not quite so charming a one as the Washington Square. The angle of the scene is not exactly the same as Eddie’s reflection in the mirror beside the TV, but close enough that it invites his imagination to blend the two. He watches the men steadily, anticipating the weight on the mattress of someone crawling up _this_ bed, toward him. The feel of someone spreading his legs. Laying down so that they touch all over. Kissing him.

Goodness, he’s never _seen_ two men kissing like lovers before, has he?

He catches himself gripping his thighs and biting his lip when Richie reemerges. He doesn’t spook at what must be a hungry look on Eddie’s face, he just smiles sort of lopsided, like he’s walked in on Eddie hopping on one foot.

“Don’t let me interrupt!”

Before Eddie can scowl or put his defenses back up, he sighs, wondering. “How do they do it?”

Richie flops back onto the bed. “Lots of lube.”

Eddie laughs and rolls his eyes. “I mean-“ he gestures vaguely. “How do they ever _find_ each other?”

 _"Well,_ I imagine these schmoes got set up by some sweaty producer they met at a pool party,” says Richie. But he knows that’s not what Eddie’s asking, and he can be genuine, if you let him get out a few cracks first. He clears his throat and tries again, staring up at the ceiling. “It's just like for anybody else,” he says lightly. “You meet somebody with that special somethin’, and if they feel that way too, eventually things can’t help but heat up!”

Eddie watches the men on the TV tangle together and wonders if they feel anything for each other, at all. Wouldn’t it be nice if they fell in love? Can it happen in that order? It all seems like such a mismatched accident, but also so effortlessly coordinated. How do they know to move at the same time like that, curving together? Surely if two strangers can do it, it would be even better the more you knew the other person. If you’d known each other a very long time, if you had years of practice making each other happy, it could be something so perfect. _He and Richie_ could be perfect.

If that was something Richie wanted... wouldn’t he have said by now?

Whatever the case, watching and thinking has him longing. He can feel himself swell hot against his thigh, and he’s just a _little_ too tipsy to think better of adjusting himself in front of someone else. He doesn’t just tuck it more comfortably though. He squeezes himself through his slacks like the men on screen squeeze, and he whimpers.

“Go ahead, if the spirit moves ya,” Richie chuckles. “Carpe Diem!”

Observed, Eddie jerks his hand away. “I couldn’t do it, not in front of you.”

“Why not?”

“It’s... _rude?”_

“I’m not offended!” Richie spreads his hands magnanimously. “Who’s it hurting?”

“Uh.” Eddie looks back to him and blanks. Right now he really only cares what Richie thinks, and he’s having enough trouble receiving that signal, thank you.

Then Richie rolls onto his side and drops his hand to his own crotch, which is pretty clear-cut. He rubs the heel up and down his fly demonstratively and levels Eddie with a skeptical look. “There. Neither of us are dropping dead,” he says.

“But it’s private, isn’t it?” Eddie tip toes his fingers back into his lap and palms himself, if only to keep the thing down. He didn’t expect Richie to do _that._

“Sex?” Richie laughs. His hand keeps moving in an enticing demonstration and his licks his lips. “People team up for that all the time, believe it or not. But if it makes you feel better, I won’t look,” he swears, and closes his eyes.

 _Sex._ Sex with _Richie._

Does he consider this sex? If they just touch themselves, but not each other? Surely not. He's joking! Probably this sort of thing is totally normal in Hollywood, and other places people don’t live with their mothers. Like how teen boys passed around nudie magazines with their friends, adult men provided their buddies with the real deal! Richie is just being hospitable, allowing Eddie his pornographic preference. Eddie doesn’t have enough close male friends to know otherwise. Eddie doesn’t _want_ to know- not if it will slow this down. Not more than he wants to know what it will feel like. His mind’s eye flashes, looking at him.

 _Richie,_ between his legs. Touching him and bending with him. _Kissing_ him. 

Oh God.

Eddie whips his head back to the TV, the ‘safe’ alternative, and one of the men is sucking the other, now. What if _Richie_ put his mouth on him like that? His toes curl. He’s so turned on, he feels like whether he plays with himself or not, the result may well be the same. He can’t absorb all of this and not respond.

“Damn it,” he shivers, unbuttoning his pants. “Oh, Lord forgive me.”

When he slips his hand in, his cock is fully stiff and fever hot. He’s so hard, he can’t stroke it like he needs to with the room allowed by his underwear. A quick glance confirms that Richie isn’t looking, so he pushes his pants down, shorts and all, letting himself bob free. Eddie strangles a moan as he’s finally able to give his cock satisfying stroke, tightening down over the head. _That’s it._ He does it again, in rhythm with the men on screen. Again and- _oh-_ again. Perhaps because they are professionals and he is but a dabbler, he quickly overwhelms himself.

“Shit,” he hisses, as his cock starts to weep. It beads at the tip and then absorbs into his skin as he squeezes it over, making his grip all the more slippery and satisfying. _“Ohh...”_

There’s a groan, and when he turns his head, Richie’s pulled himself out of his pants, too. He’s got his eyes closed like he promised- no hardship when the entertainment selection is not to his liking, really- but he’s plenty excited even without inspiration. Probably one of those guys who can get turned on by linoleum, as they say.

“See, Eddie?” Richie pants. “It’s all good.”

 _God,_ it’s good. Richie is right here beside him, breathing heavy, making the bed tremble as he moves. It’s almost like they’re trembling against each other.

Eddie _knows_ he’s meant to be looking at the TV, but he can’t help himself. He can’t look away. His stomach flips at the particularly endearing way Richie crosses his ankles anxiously. And his rosy cheeks beg to at least be appreciated if they can’t be kissed. The way his sturdy body flexes deserves further inspection too, if Eddie can’t hold it. Each of his soft little sounds makes Eddie’s heart ache. He _would_ answer them.

It’s all too much- Eddie has to close his eyes, or else. “I have to stop or I’m gonna...”

“Hhh _no,”_ Richie huffs. “Don’t stop, don’t stop-“

Eddie whines, humiliatingly enough. _“Richie...”_

“Jesus, Eddie! _Uhn_ yeah.”

Richie makes the whole bed bounce in his fervor, and Eddie with it, desperately thrusting. Maybe his body actually leaves the surface, because he feels weightless and loopy for a moment-

“Nnngg, _oh gosh!”_

“Yuhhggodyeaheddie...” Richie mutters.

-And then Eddie crashes back down, thrilled and spilling from so deep within, even his heart clenches like it's being wrung out for more. His head swims until the feeling ripples away again. Then he’s just heavy and dopey, catching his breath with eyes half lidded like a lovesick cartoon.

Richie sucks in a deep breath that he lets out as a laugh. “Oh brother,” he says, plucking at his shirt to see the damage. Dark, wet stains mar the hem. “Welp, that’ll need a soak.” He starts unbuttoning and rolls his head to check on Eddie. “You okay there, kid?”

Eddie blinks back and forth, looking and not looking at Richie, unsure where the line is now that they’re through. It doesn’t seem quite right to bask in this. That’s what lovers do, and they are... not that. He decides to focus on inspecting himself for the aftermath of whatever the hell this was. A rowdy Boy’s Night, maybe.

“Oh, yeah, okay. I’m fine!” Eddie laughs a little more high pitched than he means to. He carefully cups his hand to prevent further mess and twists around to sit and pull his pants back up. “I need to- uh- one minute.”

“Thanks folks, I’ll be here all night!”

He doesn’t look back at Richie before hobbling off to the bathroom. He doesn’t really look at him when he comes back out, either. He pretends this is a matter of locating his shoes and the tie Richie threw off when they got to the room.

“Tonight was fun, and your- your show was great,” he says, toeing around determinedly. “But you’ve got your flight in the morning, so. I should beat it.”

 _“Again?”_ The smirk in Richie’s voice compels Eddie to finally catch his eye, if only for a dirty look. Unfortunately that only makes Richie even more smug. He sits back, looking endlessly tempting with his open shirt and crossed ankles. “It is pretty late for the east coast, I guess. Go on! Put an egg in your shoe!”

Eddie drapes his jacket over his arm and wavers at the edge of the bed. He can’t trust himself to spend any longer here when all he wants to do is climb back in with Richie and kiss him, but he still feels like a heel, leaving so hastily.

“We’ll- we’ll have a little time in the morning,” he offers uncertainly. “We can do breakfast before your flight? If you want?”

“My people will call your people,” Richie winks.

Eddie says goodnight and gets out of there as quick as he possibly can.  
  
  
-  
  


Mercifully, there’s only so much they can say about last night at breakfast. There’s diner food to eat, jokes to be made, fellow patrons to mind, and a plane to catch. Eddie keeps taking charge of the conversation anytime he feels the topic head toward the serious or salacious, so much so he barely drinks any of his coffee. He gets a fresh cup to go, and holds it tight when Richie hugs him goodbye at the gate. Maybe it’s better that he not have both hands free.

As they pull apart, Richie tousles his hair like he did when they were first reunited. “Last chance to trade in and hop a flight to Aruba! Whaddya say? Live off of coconuts and join a flock of flamingos?”

“If only. You’d fit right in, Stilts.”

 _“Just say da woids and we’ll beat da boids,_ _Eddie,”_ Richie croons.

“You should go board,” Eddie sighs wistfully.

Richie glances at the line shuffling through the gate. It’s down to just the stragglers from coach, now. “Yeah, I don’t wanna have to hang off the wing the whole way,” he says, picking up his bag and stepping backwards toward the gate.

“Bye, Richie.”

“So long, _Spaghetti Man,”_ Richie grins and waves from out of reach.

What a punk!

In another moment he hands over his boarding pass and disappears down the ramp. Only then does Eddie realize he circumvented so much conversation this morning, he didn’t give Richie a chance to say when he expects to be back in New York. Eddie could kick himself. He didn’t get Richie’s home phone either. Once Richie gets him going about something silly, Eddie’s a goner. No mind for those sorts of technicalities. Richie’s sharp, though. He’ll know how to get the number for the company again, if he wants it.

_If._

The jet bridge retracts for the plane to close its doors and leave the gate, and Eddie’s heart sinks. What if this absent trail of breadcrumbs is purposeful? What if this was it? Richie satisfied his curiosity about his old friend and that’s that. They’ll never see each other again.

After watching Richie's plane take off, he feels low enough that he may as well go home. Ma can’t possibly put him in a worse mood.  
  
  


-  
  
  


As Eddie was an unusually social butterfly the past few nights, he missed the arrival of the new _TV Guide._ He checks under all the piles of newspapers, the stack of _TIMEs,_ and even the bill drawer where Ma sometimes stuffs mail Eddie needs to look at, then gives up for a while. Finally he sees the red corner of the little magazine in the rubbish bin while he’s tossing crumbs from lunch.

“What’re you doing in here?” Eddie tuts and fishes the thing out. It’s not too bad off, if he rips off the buttery back cover. He crumples it and tosses it back into the bin, eyeing Ma, sitting at the table with her tea. “Did you mistake this for junk mail?” he asks. She’s not a particularly forgetful senior.

Ma tinks her spoon in the cup without raising her eyes to him. “No,” she says. “I just figured since you haven’t been coming home at night lately, you wouldn’t need it.”

“What?” Eddie stops flipping through the pages and furrows his brow. “I hardly ever work nights since hiring more drivers.”

“-To make more time to be _home,”_ Ma says. “Not to be off gallivanting all hours, worrying your mother.”

Eddie can’t- well he _can_ believe it, actually. Ma is not above arbitrary consequences for his ‘stepping out of line’, but this is an unusual manifestation.

“I told you I had tickets in the city. I don’t get free tickets everyday.” Eddie was fairly above board about his plans to go to a taping followed by drinks in The Village. He waves the _TV Guide._ “We’re back to the usual tonight.”

Ma just sniffs. “I’m sure _Myrna_ has a subscription.”

“It’s _Myra,”_ Eddie corrects. “And I’m sure she does, but what’s she got to do with it?”

“You were with her last night, weren’t you?”

You could knock Eddie over with a feather. “No?”

Tea sloshes all over as Ma brings down her cup suddenly. “Don’t lie to me, I called your office yesterday, Eddie!”

“You knew I wouldn’t be there, Ma. I told you I was in the city all day,” Eddie repeats, evenly as he can. He tries not to flinch for the tea towel to mop up the spill, even as it drains to the edge of the table.

“Myrna wouldn’t tell me where you were staying the night-“

 _“Myra_ didn’t know-“

“Because it was _with her!”_

Eddie didn’t tell either of them which hotel he was staying at in case Ma tried to call him and beg him to come home. That might have been preferable to this. He can deal with it when Ma pleads. When Ma accuses him of not caring about her- that he knows how to handle, too, and it’s just between the two of them. Dragging other people into her wake, however, cannot continue.

“What did you say to her?”

“That she should be _ashamed_ of herself!” Ma declares, without hesitation. “You’re too sweet a boy to get mixed up with someone like her.”

“That’s what you think of me?” Eddie fumes. “That I’d take advantage of my employee?”

“Can’t take advantage of a loose woman,” Ma scoffs. “Working in a place _full_ of men, why do you think that is?”

“You’re the one who has been completely inappropriate with her from day one.” Eddie slaps the magazine down on the counter. He needs to call the office and apologize. He needs to get out of here once and for all! He dials the kitchen phone and glares at Ma.

She doesn’t stick around to offer her own apology, of course. She slinks off to the parlor to pout and Eddie doesn’t miss her.

After talking to Myra and promising that he will take concrete measures, Eddie spends the rest of the day making piles of belongings that he’ll move, and lists of those he’ll replace. Taking stock, it surprises him just how little of the house is arranged for his own liking. Even the size of the place itself was picked to fulfill his mother’s wishes. Before the Great Depression and the war, her father always promised her and her sisters that one day they’d take all the money he made in America back to the old country and buy a house where they’d each have their own bedroom. Of course that fell through, and then with Dad dying before he could come through, it fell to Eddie to provide her dream house- so, five rooms it is! Not that his aunties visit often, or that he can blame them for keeping their distance.

Eddie works well into the night, planning and packing. He forgets to be mopey about Richie until he empties his pockets on the nightstand before bed and re-encounters the note with his number at the hotel. By then he’s turned a sort of mental corner on the matter. If he can get out of here, anything can happen! He’ll have his own place soon, not only to keep Ma at bay, but to welcome friends into, and he can’t help but plug Richie in as the placeholder. He falls asleep thinking how novel it’ll be to have company over to watch a game, or have a poker night and serve snacks in any room he pleases- or to mingle in the kitchen with drinks and music late into the evening. He could fall asleep in front of the TV without getting scolded. He could snuggle up to someone’s shoulder. 

By Sunday morning, Eddie is feeling more charitable. It might have something to do with being in church, but mostly he’s relieved to have made up his mind. While he’s internally debating how to break it to Ma, he gets distracted by her singing the Mass. She’s always had a lovely voice, and this is the place to hear it, since besides Bobby Vinton she doesn’t care much for secular music.

Maybe Eddie doesn’t dread _every_ waking moment spent with his mother. She's always happy to go for a drive with him, or listen to him gush about a car. When she's doing well, she's full of fascinating stories about Dad and working in a factory during the war. The _TV Guide_ incident nudged him up to a long overdue edge, but as long as there’s some separation, maybe he doesn’t need to completely jump off. It’s easy to get along with her here. Maybe when he moves out, they can still have Sundays.

Honor thy mother, right?   
  
  


-  
  
  


To keep the burden of managing Ma’s separation anxiety where it belongs, Eddie gets Caller ID installed on the phone at reception. Myra gets blanket permission to screen calls from Eddie’s former residence when he’s not available to pick up himself. As a gesture of good will, in return Myra hooks him up with a realtor friend of hers in the city. 

Eddie takes some time off work to move, and Donna finds him a downtown loft that feels like the perfect clean slate. It’s completely opposite of the warren-like way he and Ma have been living, with high ceilings, huge windows, and lots of open space. He and his unpacked boxes relax and eat take out using the edge of the bed as a temporary couch until new furniture can be delivered. Never before has he been allowed to pig out in bed- and right in the middle of the apartment! Why should he sequester himself, when it’s _all_ his? This must be how other people’s college years went, that didn’t commute. Although his apartment is bare for now, he feels like he’s finally catching up.

There are a symphony of new city sounds at night to keep him company, and he stays up late watching _Thirtysomething,_ and _Midnight Caller,_ and anything else he’d given up trying to watch since Ma read that study linking sleep loss and road accidents. He takes the subway for the first time in a good fifteen years or so, and he goes to shows on a whim, changing his plans without alerting anyone, or soothing their meltdown about it. While exploring surrounding neighborhoods on foot, he goes into a specialty bookstore on the corner of the aptly named Gay Street, and ogles titles he’s not quite ready for. He’ll know where to find them in the future, at any rate.

Once the last of his new living room set is delivered and signed for, Eddie’s vacation comes to an end. He returns to work with a fresh attitude, matched by Myra’s chipper greeting.

“Hiya Ed!”

“Good morning, Myra!”

Eddie pauses at her desk before heading on through to his own office. She’s got a little yellow strip of paper taped next to the read out for the Caller ID with his old number written in red felt pen. Excellent.

Myra sits back in her chair, grinning and at ease. It’s the first time in a while she hasn’t seemed overly harried upon his return. “Donna said she fixed you up Downtown, how're you liking it?”

“It’s terrific! I feel spoiled,” Eddie admits. “I could walk someplace different for breakfast every day of the week. Or _month,_ maybe.”

“You should bring me a bagel sometime then,” Myra laughs. “Everything on it!”

“I owe you,” Eddie says, truthfully. “I, uh. I know it was rough for a bit there, but I hope we’ve got ourselves set for success, now.”

Myra smiles a closed mouth, sympathetic smile. She’s been perhaps inexplicably understanding through all this baloney. “I’m just glad you got out of there,” she says.

“Yeah, I- it’s good to be finding my footing. On my own.”

After a quick duck of her head to see that no one is in the hall between the office and the garage, Myra fixes him with a concerned look. “How’d she take it?” she asks. “You don’t have to tell me. I just- I figure you’re not out to a lot of people, so if you needed someone to talk to- I understand.”

Out to-

“Out of the house?” Eddie squints. “I told everybody who needs to know my new address...”

“Oh, honey,” Myra grimaces. She checks down the hall again. “You do know, don’t you? I thought that’s why you made the break,” she says, hushed.

“Uh, yeah, no, I know,” Eddie fibs. The beginnings of an inkling are dancing around the edges of his brain, though. “I just couldn’t put up with her namecalling you like that, it was completely out of line,” he says quickly, hoping the rest of the thought will gather momentum and come to him. “Again, I’m sorry.”

Myra waves it off. “It was kinda hysterical,” she chuckles. “Donna and I had a good laugh over the ‘man eater’ thing.”

“Oh good Lord.” Eddie covers his face with one hand. There it is.

 _Myra and Donna!_ No wonder she’d always treated Eddie like they had a bond he couldn’t remember earning. She must have recognized who he was all along. She’d called Donna a ‘girlfriend’ the way women sometimes do, but really she’d been _confiding_ in him to show support during the fight with Ma!

Eddie’s sure he turns red. “Yeah,” he says. “I- I appreciate the irony, now that I’m not in the middle of it...”

“Incredible,” Myra sighs and shakes her head. _“Parents._ Mine were convinced I was in love with David Cassidy. Really, I just wanted to look like him,” she says, fluffing her hair.

“Yeah,” Eddie laughs. That had been him, trying to master a Monroe-like bang. Even after the unprecedented week of respite, a further weight on Eddie lifts. He’s found another safe little space, right under his nose, all the while. “I didn’t tell her about me yet,” Eddie clarifies for Myra. “I don’t know if I ever can,” he adds.

“That’s okay,” Myra says kindly. “You can do it however you want. It’s your life now.”

Eddie’s gonna _have_ to remember that bagel. He sniffs and smiles, tight. “Right. Thank you.”

One of the drivers coughs, coming down the hall to the office and Myra takes it as a cue. She shuffles through her paperwork for the stack of memos and invoices Eddie needs to review, and hands them off. “Good luck.”

Eddie leafs through on his way to his desk, and comes upon one particular memo for a missed call that makes his heart squeeze.  
  
  


-  
  
  


This time Eddie knows who he’s calling, and it’s bound to be personal or else Richie would have just made a booking with Myra. On that grounds, Eddie figures he ought to save it until he gets home, and jams the memo into his pocket. By the time he gets up to his apartment his nerves are jangled like a whole carol’s worth of bells. He touches the folded edge of the paper with Richie’s number while taking out his keys and his hands actually shake, turning the lock. 

When he's ready the new couch accepts him into its cushy, reassuring embrace, _Sit back! Unwind!_ and Eddie’s got a glass of water on standby. There’s nothing to it but to do it. He smooths Richie’s number over his knee until the paper takes a curve and then dials. While it rings and rings- _Richie is probably busy, it’s evening there, entertaining hours, Richie’s an entertainer-_ Eddie leans in towards the coffee table, hunched over the phone.

“Yellow,” Richie answers, “Blue is this?”

 _“Richie,”_ Eddie finally smiles.

“-from the future or the past?” Richie jumps in. “If you’re Past Richie, I gotta bone to pick with you, if you’re Future Richie, would you mind tellin’ me the lotto numbers?”

“This is future Richie, letting you know that Eddie has returned to the office.”

“Eddie, ya don’t say...” But Richie already knew that or he wouldn’t be toying with him. “Burning the midnight oil, huh?”

Eddie chuckles and collapses back into the couch. “Nah, I’m calling from home.”

“Oh yeah?” Richie sounds like he must be rubbing his chin conspiratorially. “Why don’t you put Ma on and lemme give her a thrill.”

“I _can’t,”_ Eddie revels. “I, uh, I moved out, actually! That’s why I haven’t been in the office to take your call. I’ve been setting up shop in my new apartment.”

There’s a burst of laughter on the other end. “You finally threw Momma from the train, huh!? If I’d of known! I would've asked your secretary for your number by now, but I didn’t want to give you trouble at home.”

That was thoughtful of him. Eddie melts a little. “Yeah, it’s been kind of a whirlwind.”

“But you’re happy with it?” Richie checks.

“Yeah! I mean, things are gonna be rocky between us for a while, but I think if I’m not seeing her every day, I’ll have more patience when I do,” Eddie reasons. He glances around at the surrounding apartment, still mostly bare, but all _his._ “I’ll have more of a life, too.”

“Then I’m happy for you buddy!”

Eddie pulls his knees up under him and nestles into the corner of the couch, cradling the phone to his ear. “It was a long time coming. I think maybe... I think I have to thank you for the kick in the pants.”

“Lil ol’ me?” Richie snorts. “Finally, my flair for homewrecking comes in handy.”

Eddie doesn’t know quite what to say to that. Richie’s track record for divorce is tied into a larger, swirling uncertainty that he doesn’t know how to tackle yet, or if he should even try. He battles on past it. 

“Talking to you helped me put some things in perspective,” Eddie admits. He can let Richie fill in the gaps. “I’m not helping her, playing along, and she’s not helping me, either. Next thing I knew, Ma was giving me a reason to push back, and... I did.”

 _“Pleasure to be of service,”_ Richie simpers in a British butler’s voice. “So! I guess I’m racking up reasons to come back to New York. Now I gotta check out your new digs!”

“Yeah?” Eddie gets a new butterfly in his stomach.

“Yeah! Actually, that’s why I called,” Richie says, coming to a rare-for-him pause. “I- uh, wanted to make sure it was okay if I hired you again.”

Eddie feels a little breathless. “Yeah, of course. Why not?”

Richie makes an uncertain sound on the other end. “I thought maybe you felt like things... went too far.”

Oh, definitely breathless, now. Eddie struggles to find his voice. Where’s that glass of water? “Do- do _you_ think it went too far?” he asks.

What they did was unarguably sexual, however flimsily separate.

Eddie grabs his water while Richie collects himself, and the surface trembles, held in his hand. He must have made some kind of faux pas. He tried to be as neutral as he could while unwilling to declare his feelings, or turn Richie away entirely.

_Please say he didn’t ruin things._

“Eddie, I- uh. I should have told you the truth, I just wanted to- well I told myself it wasn’t my moment, it was yours, I guess!” Richie clears his throat. “But I kind of feel like maybe I took advantage of the situation.”

Maybe he really _is_ married, and what he said about Mo was a joke Eddie took too far.

“It was a mistake,” is all Eddie can choke out. _His_ mistake.

“Yeah. _No!”_ Richie stumbles over himself. “Eddie, I wanted to, if you wanted to! But I should have told you- I like men, too! I like everybody, really, but I’m- I’m like you about it,” he says. “I never tried being with a man for a lot of the same reasons. It’s like you said... I never had anybody I could trust before.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, head swimming. He’d been holding his breath, but now, _oh,_ the rush! A giddy feeling washes through him from head to toe. “Are you saying... you trust me?”

“Depends on if you're gonna cash in this hot tip?”

Eddie could torpedo Richie’s career if he whispered in the right ears, which he does occasionally have access to in his course of business. He has to imagine Richie knows that, and still, he’s already taken the leap. 

“No, never,” Eddie promises.

“What about you?” Richie asks. “Did I blow it?”

“No!” Eddie jumps in his seat. “I trust you. I- even when I assumed you weren’t interested in me- _in men,”_ he corrects, “I felt safe with you.”

“Yeah,” Richie sighs in relief. “Yeah, that’s great to hear! Whew!” Now Richie’s the one who sounds like he recently came in from a jog. “I dunno about you, Eddie, but I’m open to more. We could give it a go, figuring things out!”

Of course Richie can’t see him nodding, Eddie has to remind himself. He can’t see Eddie shiver with excitement either, thank goodness. “I’m open to more,” Eddie says. “We could... try things together.”

“Is there anything I should do? Not do? Should I not call for you at work?”

“Oh, pfft.” Eddie laughs. “No, that’s not a problem.” After today, Myra might throw him a parade if she got the idea he was seeing someone.

“Okay! Next time I come out, is it okay if I plan to stay with you?” Richie asks. “No pressure, if you’d rather not have a sleepover right away.”

About fifteen feet beyond the TV and the lit area where Eddie sits, the bed waits in shadows for his answer, too.

_“Yes.”_

“Great!”

“Okay!” Eddie has to do his due diligence, though. “Um. Do you already know you’re clean?”

“Mhmm.” Richie hums. “I got tested when I caught Number Four in a three-way with two of the guys from _Hollywood Squares_ and I’ve been a one-some ever since.”

“Right,” Eddie says. “Sorry.”

 _"But yeah,_ we should probably agree about other people, up front,” Richie says, a little more upbeat. “We tell each other if we wanna see someone else- deal?”

Eddie gulps. “Oh! Like, _during_ this?” 

“I’m not always in town, I wouldn’t wanna cramp your style!”

“You don’t have to worry about that, I can’t imagine anyone else inquiring.”

“Aww, sweetheart,” Richie purrs. “I can’t imagine anyone who gets a look at you _not_ wanting to go Kit Kat.” 

Gosh, Richie had been flirting all this time, hadn’t he? 

“Deal.” Eddie laughs and lets that soothe the stinging truth of who this final rule is really for.

At some point, the arrangement with Richie’s fake fiancee will dry up. He might even have to ward off rumors of his own, if he’s seen hanging all over Eddie. He might pick up another girlfriend, a _real_ one this time. He might find it easier to just be with her, than to fly across the country to have an affair. But Eddie can’t think like that. With very little effort he just walked into a chance to convince Richie he doesn’t just want more from their relationship, he wants it _all._

“So,” Eddie clears his throat. “When are you gonna be in New York again?”

“You tell me. Pick a date and I’ll schedule some stuff I got going on around it.”

Luckily enough, Eddie already has something handy. “I was thinking about having a housewarming on the 30th?”

“Then I’ll be there with bells on,” Richie grins through the phone.

 _Richie, here in his home._ Just two and a half weeks from now!

Eddie looks around. “Oh crud.”

“What?”

“Do I have enough chairs?” Eddie starts counting off likely employees and known spouses. “Right now I’ve only got the couch.”

“Don’t worry, you can sit in my lap, that’ll save a seat.”

“Very funny.”

“Thank you,” Richie accepts graciously. “I’m a paid professional!”

“So you tell me. Well, as long as the checks cash,” Eddie shrugs.

Richie chuckles. “Speaking of! Hey, wanna hear the scuttlebutt over at VH1?”

“Please imagine me with my chin on my hand,” Eddie says, falling into gossip position.

“I’m tryin’ Eddie baby, but I’ll need you to tell me the make and model of that couch and what you’re wearing...”  
  
  
-


	2. Chapter 2

_“You have reached 555-0688. I’m not in to receive your call right now, but please leave your name, number, and a brief message after the beep, and I will return your call. Thank you.”_

_“-don’t know how to use the answering machine, you have to come show me, Eddie! Can’t you afford one of those cell phones? I would just call you wherever you are, and then we’d never miss each other. You could tell me where you are! Do you realize you forgot to write down your new address for me? Eddie? What if something happens to you and you don’t come to see me on Sunday? Where am I supposed to send the police to look?”_

-

Richie’s only able to squeeze an overnight on the 30th into his schedule, but sets all his New York meetings for that morning and the day after and hops a red eye. He’s understandably bleary when Eddie picks him up at JFK, but there’s not enough time to bring him home for a proper nap. When they get out to the car, instead of automatically opening the rear door, Eddie touches his elbow. It’s their first contact in weeks. It seemed out of place to go hugging someone coming off a plane when he’s in livery, out in the open, but here in the shelter of the parking garage Richie turns toward the touch.

“Do you want me to make a coffee run?” Eddie asks, as Richie’s arm slips around him. “Or you could lie down in the back for a bit,” he offers, softly. Richie’s nose has found its way to his neck. Eddie lets the bag on his shoulder slump to the ground so he can hold Richie back. "Hi Richie."

“Mmm. If I go in back, are you coming too?” Richie muffles.

Eddie wishes. The lingering warmth of Richie’s cheek against his is not enough, at all. “We’re in a bit of a squeeze and I have to get you to Midtown during rush hour,” he reminds Richie. “You’re welcome to pass out for a bit. I’ll park and wake you up in time.”

 _“Front_ seat,” Richie decides, and lets go. He smirks at Eddie as he swoops to open the door for him, and sits. “Is that allowed by your Chauffer’s Code of Chivalry?”

“In this century we call it ‘Conduct’,” Eddie grins and shuts the door.

He stows Richie’s bag in the trunk as he circles around, and takes his own seat. Richie is already slumped down in the passenger’s seat, eyes closed and hands folded like a sepulcher statue as he fashions a few guidelines.

“Fear none but God! Protect the innocent! Scorn the wicked!” he bellows, “-And _always_ put your charge on the back of the pony!”

And certainly, it would be unusual to have a client up front with him in a limo. They’re paying for the upscale experience! The more they can forget the road even exists, the better. It doesn’t trouble Eddie to have Richie at his side though. That’s where he wants him, and he’ll soak it all up, even as he snoozes.

They make it to Rockefeller Plaza with a half hour to spare, so Eddie finds a spot to give Richie what rest can be eked out. He even flips down the sun visor just so, to keep the light out of his eyes. There’s always some paperback fantasy Eddie’s working on in the glove compartment, so he reads and sneaks little glances, looking forward to when he gets a chance to do this in bed tomorrow morning. The sun gets toasty, coming in through those big windows of his. It wakes him up gently and puts that fine golden edge of light on his limbs as he stretches. He wants to see it trim Richie’s eyelashes and nose and the line of his cheek when Eddie kisses him good morning after a night of passion. It could be so tender, waking up together- so special. Maybe Richie would fall in love with him, too.

The little digital alarm clock Eddie keeps clipped in his inner breast pocket beeps and he shuts his book. That’s enough fantasizing for now. 

He sees Richie off and takes care of a few errands for the business and gets his own lunch while Richie’s in his meeting, pays his daily phone call to Ma, then pulls back around, precisely at two o’clock. Richie is already milling around the curb in his sunglasses, looking bouncy. He’s quick on his feet, getting to the car before Eddie can think to get out and open the door.

“Ohhoho, you are looking at a very lucky man!” Richie says, barreling in. He pulls the door shut behind himself with an exuberant slam, and just as suddenly leans over to plant a kiss on Eddie’s cheek.

The mark of it burns there as Eddie looks at him, wide eyed. “I take it the meeting went well?”

“Well!” Richie throws up his hands. “It went _well,_ it went _water pump,_ it went the _whole flippin’ treatment plant!”_

“What on earth?!”

Richie twists in his seat and claps Eddie’s face between both hands. “I don’t think I can tell you legally, but rest assured, buddy! Big things!”

Eddie is happy to see him happy, though mystified. “It sounds big!”

“If my agent had been in the room and not speakerphone I’d have broken a bottle of champagne on his nose like a new ship,” Richie grins. “Good thing you’re already having a party tonight because I! Am! Celebrating!”

“Perfect,” Eddie beams, even as Richie’s touch slips away again. “We have a while before then, what do you wanna do? Do you still want to shop for dinner with me, or should I drop you off so you can crash for a bit?”

Richie leans back and laces his fingers behind his head. “I’m good for it! I’m walkin’ on sunshine, right now.”

“What do you say we go to the King Kullen towards my office, and you can take a look around?”

“Ooo!” Richie bolts upright and drums the dashboard. “Yes! I wanna know where to imagine you when I call...”

Eddie puts the car in drive again. “I know you do, you snoop.”

Richie makes a strong case for serving ice cream sundaes tonight, so they get out of Manhattan and opt to stop off at Kaspbrak Limos first, lest their groceries melt from doing things the other way around. Eddie’s a little uncertain just how much time Richie wants to burn here, but he delights in the opportunity for a private tour.

“Aww, this is where all the little limos go to sleep at night,” Richie coos, when they get out of the car. He visors his hand at his brow to survey Eddie’s fleet of gleaming black and white vehicles. “I’ve been on a few vintage rental lots for the movies, but I never get to see _these_ guys in their natural habitat.”

Eddie turns his head, trying to look at it as an unfamiliar sight. He built up his business gradually, so the normality of a row of identical luxury cars sort of snuck up on him. It's a weekday, so most of the town cars are out and about on corporate jobs, while the showiest vehicles are waiting to be deployed to weddings and other special weekend events.

“There’s almost a hundred, right now,” Eddie tells him. “Ninety-six. Twenty-three stretch... I just sold off a bunch of older models I started with so I can replace them, or you’d have caught me with more.”

Richie whistles. “I don’t even wanna know how much gas you go through. Couple Titanic’s worth a month?”

“Yeah,” Eddie laughs. “I’m thinking of cutting to the chase and opening a cruise line.”

 _“Edward's Escapes,”_ Richie announces through his hands, like a commercial. _“Come sail away on our world class raft made of twenty stretch limos lashed together with duct tape. The vacation you’ll never forget awaits you!”_

“How do we make it float?”

“The limos are jammed full of Coke bottles,” Richie says, easily. _“In-room refreshment service, five star catering, and-”_

Eddie waves to passing driver as they make their way towards the building. “Hey Joey!”

“Hey, nice day, huh? Who’s this?”

It’s pretty uncommon for anyone outside the company to be on the premises, especially tagging along with Eddie. Ma never visited, because of ‘the fumes’.

Eddie thumbs at Richie, now trumpeting ‘Kokomo’ through his hands. “Advertising consultant.”

Joey does a double take. “You’re Richie Tozier!” he realizes. “Wow, I heard you guys were old friends, but I thought that was just Paul blowing smoke.”

Richie grins and holds out a hand. “Stick ‘er there!”

“Are you really shooting an ad, Eddie?” Joey asks, wide-eyed.

“Well, now there’s an idea,” Richie grins. “Think of all the _fun_ we could have with a camera, Eddie.”

“He’s just visiting for my housewarming.”

Joey nods politely and introduces himself to Richie, but like all of Eddie’s people, he knows how not to make a pest of himself just because he recognizes a celebrity. “Right! Well, I gotta get going,” he says, amiably. “I guess I’ll see you tonight!”

“Later!” Eddie waves.

Richie elbows him as they head on. “Are you _sure_ you don’t wanna pick up a camcorder and make some memories tonight?” he asks, low.

“Oh please.” Eddie elbows him back. “You wish.”

Though maybe in the future, when they’ve got the knack for it...

They tussle the rest of the way to the door, which Eddie opens by habit. The blast of air conditioning reminds him to resume professionalism.

“Ah, so that way’s the garage, which I’m sure you guessed by the bay doors, that’s the driver’s lounge, and that’s the office,” he points in each direction.

Richie leans them toward the front office and follows hot on Eddie’s heels down the hall. It’s only Myra at her desk at the moment.

She perks up at the sight of someone unfamiliar and rather more garishly dressed than usual coming her way. “Well hiya, Ed! I thought you took off for the day?”

“Yeah, mostly,” Eddie says. “I’m just showing Richie around and then we’re gonna shop for tonight.”

“I talked him into a sundae bar,” says Richie. “You’re welcome, in advance.”

“Oh fantastic! I’m bringing potstickers.”

Richie lightly pushes Eddie. “Step aside, Eddie, this is my new best friend! Hi doll, you must be the Myra I talked to on the phone.”

“That’s me,” Myra smiles, shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

“I hear you’re the backbone of this operation.”

“Oh yeah?” Myra shoots Eddie a funny look over Richie’s shoulder as he leans at her desk.

Maybe it’s a little odd to discuss the merits of your receptionist with a TV star, but of course he had to fill Richie in on what happened with Ma. He shrugs back at her like, _Well, it’s true._

“Myra’s on top of all the booking and making the schedules work. Real natural for logistics. I don’t think she even needs that binder to pull it off,” Eddie smiles.

“I can’t take all the credit. You make it easy.”

“Well, maybe since we got in the Caller ID,” Eddie winks.

“Good, good.” Richie spins around to look at the pictures hung on the walls and the potted plants, nodding. “What about your desk?”

Eddie sweeps an arm to the door a few paces behind Myra. “Right this way.”

“I’m assuming you’re not ‘in’?” Myra checks, on the off chance Ma calls while he’s in the building.

“No, thank you.”

Taking her call would be the very last thing that Eddie could hope to happen on the other side of that door. When Richie follows him through, he quietly shuts it and then _finally_ , Eddie has a chance at the first.

He checks the blinds, just to be safe.

“So you’ve got a computer all to yourself, huh?” Richie stalks around and spins Eddie’s chair and flicks his Newton’s Cradle.

“It’s a lot of numbers, running a business.”

“Color me impressed.” Richie turns around and sits on the emptiest edge of Eddie’s desk. “You’ve come a long way from copying my algebra homework.”

“I wasn’t copying it, I was checking my math against yours,” Eddie reminds him. He fiddles with the cord on the blinds, sure of what he wants to do, but unsure of how to get to it. “Uhm, we probably shouldn’t stick around here _too_ long... Just a few minutes... Then we should probably... go.”

Eddie’s hoping if he can trick himself into thinking the pressure’s on, he can force himself to act.

“Yeah, the store might run out of ice cream,” Richie smirks, kicking his feet like a kid.

“And there’s a lot of stuff to do... at the apartment...”

Eddie lets go of the cord and wanders a step closer to the desk. He holds Richie’s gaze as he inches forward. Richie must understand, must read the want in his eyes, because he stops swinging his legs.

“Yeah,” Richie says, both encouraging him and playing along. “Yeah, we have to make an ice chest for the drinks, right?”

Eddie licks his lips. He gets close enough to reach out and touch Richie’s knees. He lets his fingertips fall, light. “The fridge has plenty of room, actually.”

“What about cookin’?” Richie teases. “Will that take long?”

“I was gonna make fondue,” Eddie says as he leans into the vee of Richie’s legs. “That’s pretty quick.”

Richie creeps his hands up Eddie’s sides and watches his mouth, drawing nearer. He weaves his head to complement the approach, and their noses graze at each other’s cheeks. “Sounds like we don’t really hafta rush, then.”

“No,” Eddie mumbles, letting his lips drag to Richie’s jaw. “Unless there’s something _else_ you want to do before-”

But then Richie’s mouth meets his and there’s really no point in pretense. There’s no hurry. He savors how soft Richie’s kiss is, knowing this is Eddie’s first. They talked about it a few nights ago on the phone.

_You never kissed anyone?_

_No, not at all._

_Then it’s up to me to correct this grave injustice._

_Oh, so you’re a vigilante?_

_Holy pianola, Batman. Whapow! Hee-ya!_

_I wasn’t planning to put up a fight._

_Then I’ll be gentle,_ Richie promised. And he is.

His hands are slow on Eddie’s back. He doesn’t pull Eddie into his arms as they kiss, so much as he erodes the space between them with repetition. Eddie can’t help but lap at him like a tide, closer, further, until their tongues are in each other’s mouths and Eddie’s chest is hammering so loud he could swear there’s a knock at the door.

Eddie breaks away, panting a little. He doesn’t know when his arms ended up wrapped around Richie’s neck- last he knew they were still hovering by his elbows. It feels natural, though, so he doesn’t let go.

Richie gives him a squeeze and grins. “Was that everything it's cracked up to be?”

“Uhuh,” Eddie answers, dopily. He feels like maybe he left his tongue behind in Richie’s mouth. Better go find it.

He kisses Richie again, throwing his weight against him and feeling him all over. His neck, warm and bare between his hands, his solid shoulders and chest, beating beneath his searching hands. He tackles Richie until he really does hear something knock- a paperweight falling over as he pushes Richie back. 

“Should- _haha._ Should we get going?” Richie nips down his neck. “Have you got a bigger, softer desk somewhere? Or do you wanna climb up here and see if you can crash your computer, too?”

The hot smear of Richie’s mouth on his flesh has put Eddie beyond reason. He dives back in to kiss Richie some more and his pen cup goes for a tumble. It keeps clattering as the cup bounces and rolls away.

“Oh, shh!”

“It’s just excited, can you blame it?” Richie giggles.

Eddie huffs. Maybe he should save it for when they get to the apartment. He steals one last kiss before leaning back, because seriously, this isn’t the place for him to get _excited._

Richie catches hold of his hand before Eddie can fully disentangle himself. “Hey, Eddie-“ He stands up and stops Eddie short, trying to duck down to pick up after himself.

“Sorry, I got swept up, uh-“

“Hey, come back here,” Richie says, drawing Eddie to him. He bends to kiss his cheek with a chuckle. “I just wanna say- I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“Yeah?” Eddie looks up at Richie, happier than he knows how to express. “I’m glad it's you,” he breathes.

No matter how far this winds up going, Eddie does believe it’s something they’re doing starting from a place of friendship. They care, and neither wants the other getting messed around by some stranger. That’s _something._

“I’ll do my best to make it worth your while, sweetheart.” Richie scratches at the back of Eddie’s head, winding his fingers into his curls. He leads him into another kiss.

“Mmm,” Eddie agrees.

When they let go, Richie helps him gather the scattered pens. Well actually, first he gives Eddie’s bent over rearend a smack, and then he helps.

“Woah nelly! Careful where you point that thing!”

Eddie pretends he didn’t just yelp. “You wanna walk through the garage on the way out?” he asks when he straightens back out.

“You askin’ me if I wanna take a look underneath the hood?” Richie waggles his eyebrows and several customized pens.

“Maybe.” Eddie holds out the cup. “Are you ASE certified?”

“Absolutely not!” Richie declares, dropping in his handful.

“I’ll review your application."

“Lead the way, Boss Man.”

Myra is on the phone taking a booking when they exit, so Eddie just gives her a little wave on their way out. Richie bows. They follow the short hall connecting the office and the garage, passing another driver who claims to be bringing crudité tonight. It’s nice that people seem interested to come visit and socialize off the clock. Eddie wasn’t sure what the turn out might be like, and he didn’t want it to be just employees, spouses, and Richie, so he photocopied an invitation and slipped a few under his neighbors’ doors. Several came by to say hello the past few days and introduce themselves, so it ought to be a bit of a mix. It was strange not breathing a word of it to Ma. They’ll start much too late in the evening for her to want to attend, but the risk of her insisting to come help set up was too great. Plus, in anticipation of Richie’s visit he went back to that bookshop, and isn’t fully convinced stowing his incriminating purchases under the bed is enough of a deterrent for her.

In the garage, one of the older Continentals is getting appraised for sale by his most recent hire, a mechanic named Cliff. Eddie put him in charge of tuning up the last of his original fleet from the Seventies, which are nearly Cliff's same age. As they cross the shop floor, he swears under the hood.

“Uh oh. What’s up?” Eddie asks, peeking around. 

Not that his people aren’t allowed to use colorful language- _you_ try telling a bunch of gear heads to watch their mouths- but Cliff’s particularly creative string of expletives seemed dire.

Cliff jumps, noticing both Eddie and Richie. “Ah! Yeah, uh. This- this hose clamp is completely rusted,” he grumbles. He dives back in with his wrench, which only serves to crumble the bolt.

“Just clip it off,” Eddie says.

“Oh.” Cliff turns red.

Doing his best not to laugh at the poor kid, Eddie crosses over to a rack of tools and pulls down some cutters. “Thanks for trying to save me two bucks,” he tells Cliff, “-but we don’t need to worry about salvaging that thing.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

He would’ve just handed it off to Cliff, but Richie is positively gleaming at the chance to see Eddie in action, and Eddie likes Richie liking _him,_ so he doesn’t.

“Now ya done it, you sorry sonuvagun,” Richie menaces the hose clamp in his most mobstery voice. He crosses his arms to lean in and see.

Eddie works one of the blades under the band of the clamp, poises to catch it, and-

“Gahh _shit!”_

The clamp springs free and slices into Eddie’s waiting hand. He drops the cutters into the engine and retrieves his wounded hand, hissing. 

“Eddie?”

_“Jesus Christ.”_

Ugh. It’s bloody messy. A _stupid_ bloody mess. What self respecting professional gets bested by a damn hose clamp!?

Richie’s touch lands on Eddie’s shoulder. “Hey kid, you got a First Aid box in here?”

Cliff sputters. “Shit, aw, uh-“

“I _know_ where it is,” Eddie bites and pulls away. He backtracks to near the hallway door again, but his squeezing hands are freely dripping blood down to the floor, now. He lets Richie intervene and pull the box off its station.

“Mr. Kaspbrak?” Cliff calls from behind. “You- you okay? You need anything else?”

“I’ll see you tonight,” Eddie grits, unable to muster further reassurance. He heads on to the bathroom, barely waiting for Richie before he shoulders the door open.

“Eddie...”

He turns the tap on with his good hand and shoves the other under the water, wincing.

When’s the last time he had a tetanus shot? Probably the last time he got himself good on something rusty in the garage, but he hasn’t really been a mechanic in a decade now.

“Shit,” Eddie huffs. “Shit, _shit!”_

When he can’t stand to run it under the water any longer, Eddie pulls some paper towels off and blots. They soak quickly, but keep it clear enough for both of them to see. The sharp edge cut into his palm, just below the join of his ring finger and pinky.

Richie is readying some tape and has a pillowy piece of gauze waiting on its open wrapper. He rips one piece of tape into two with his teeth and tries to approach. “That looks pretty deep, pal.”

 _“No,”_ Eddie whimpers.

He doesn’t want it to be deep. He doesn’t want to need a booster. He doesn’t want to be making any fuss or doing anything except operate as usual. “I don’t want to go to the hospital...”

“You wanna do some finger paintings first?” Richie holds out his hand to take Eddie’s and staunch it with the gauze.

“Oww!”

Richie frowns at how quickly it reddens. “Sorry, let me get another...”

Eddie pulls off his ring in case he starts to swell and tosses it into a soap dish. “I don’t _go_ to hospitals anymore, Richie!”

“Sure you do,” he answers back, patting on another wad and fixing it in place with tape. “I bet you drive in fancy pants brain surgeons sometimes!”

“I mean it,” Eddie pleads. “I don’t! I’m done having other people tell me what’s wrong with me! It was all fake!”

The look Richie gives him back could break Eddie’s heart. He wets his lip as he thinks, looking back and forth between Eddie and his hand, held in his own. He positions Eddie to apply his own pressure and keep the wound up, just above heart level. “No, you're right. Big picture- nothing’s the matter with you, Eddie. You’re doing great. What you say goes. You are the boss.”

Eddie can’t let go of himself, exactly, so he clumsily wipes his eyes with his wrist. “I only go to the doctor when insurance _makes_ me and I say everything’s fine-“

“I know, I know.”

“-I’m _fine,”_ Eddie insists, “-but they always wanna screen me because of how Dad died-“

“Yeah,” Richie sighs.

“One day, there’s gonna be something _real,_ Richie, and I-“

Next thing Eddie knows, Richie’s pulling him close, and enveloping him without caring that it gets blood on his shirt. As naturally as he flips off a joke, he kisses Eddie’s forehead. It quiets his mind quite directly. “We’re all gonna go some day, some way,” Richie says. “But I don’t think this little cat scratch is gonna do it _to_ day.”

_“I don’t wanna go-“_

“Shh, Boss Man.” Richie rests his chin on top of Eddie’s head. “Tell me, if we go to the ER, they're busy people- do they have time to worry about all that other stuff right now?”

“No?” Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and loosens another tear.

“Yeah, that’s not a today thing,” Richie agrees. “All they wanna know is how’s your hand.”

“It needs a sh-shot,” Eddie sniffles. “It was rusted, it could get tetanus...”

“Okay,” Richie says. He kisses Eddie’s head again and pulls back to take a look. 

Eddie offers his hand. The second layer of gauze is soaking through red. “It might need stitches,” he admits.

“Cool! I always wanted a handjob from a Munster.”

As ever, Eddie’s embarrassment and frustration no match for Richie’s effect on him. He busts out a giddy laugh. “Oh no! I didn’t even think about-”

“Don’t worry!” Richie positions Eddie’s arm back up and fixes him with a mischievous look. “This here, Eddie m’dear... is an opportunity to get _creative.”_

“That sounds like a threat.” One that makes Eddie feel something other than his hand, for a moment.

Richie winks. “You betcha!”

He stays to clean up the kit while Eddie heads back to the office to sort their means of transportation out- creatively.

Myra is still on the phone, but goes on high alert at the sight of his bandaged hand and bloody shirt cuff. She puts her call on hold and stands up in a rush, sending her chair rolling away behind her.

“What happened!?”

“It’s handled, but I knicked myself in the garage,” Eddie cringes. “I gotta switch things up a little to take care of this, Myra.”

“I’ll make it work,” she assures him. She relocates her chair so she can sit and take a note.

“Have Joey drive the stretch out to me tonight, so I have it for tomorrow? He can take my sedan back to Queens. I need Richie to take me to the ER and I really can’t have him drive a limo,” he explains, flopping his keys on her desk and gingerly plucking keys for a smaller vehicle from the peg board.

“If the insurance company asks, I didn’t hear any of that.” Myra smirks.  
  


-  
  


Thanks to back to school season, there’s a shortage of mandatory shots that sends them on a wild goose chase to a second ER. By the time they finally accomplish their shopping and make it up to Eddie’s loft, they only have an hour to spare before the party. Still, Richie makes a show of appreciation for the reveal. He and his ‘functioning’ hands carry in the entire the load of groceries at a slowed pace, soaking in the surroundings.

“Echooo, echo echo!” he calls into the apartment. “Wow, Eddie, I knew you were a Jesus-jumper, but I didn’t realize you lived in an _actual_ cathedral!”

“The ceilings are high, but it’s not _that_ big,” Eddie scoffs. Then he looks again.

The space _is_ rather straightforward and narrow, with columns but no interior walls, save for the bathroom. At the moment, light pours in from a row of clerestory windows on the left, while tall warehouse windows line the wall on the right. A sort of aisle runs down the middle of it all, between the kitchen area and the pew-like arrangement of the couches, leading up to the bed, draped in white. The cross he’s hung over his bed since his First Communion is still present, and there are even two symmetrically placed shelves, like choir screens delineating the common space from his inner sanctum of a ‘room’.

“Oh boy,” Eddie sighs. “That’s exactly where I live.”

At the time when he was planning the placement of it all out, it just made sense!

Richie puts down the groceries on the long table that stands across from the kitchen bar, giggling. “Remember when they were renovating St. John’s for mold and they had to rent out the second-run theater? They coulda just set up camp here!”

“Sometimes, I still get the urge to genuflect when I go to the movies.” Eddie shakes his head at himself.

“I’m just saying it's a really nice place, Eddie,” Richie grins. “I feel like I oughta put on a tie!”

“Oh no!” Eddie covers his mouth, realizing.

“Or if you wanna go with a more _casual_ feel, I dig!” Richie shimmies as he starts emptying bags.

Just when Eddie thought this day couldn’t contain any more mishaps. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “I left your luggage in the limo when we switched cars to go to the ER!”

Richie stops, holding aloft a block of Swiss. “Aw cheese it!”

Eddie looks down at the ring of keys for the wrong car in his bandaged hand. “Joey will bring it tonight, but I don’t think he’s coming right away! Oh, _shoot,”_ he grumbles.

“That was a very mutual forgetting, Eddie. A real team effort! Don’t sweat it,” Richie says, shrugging it off.

Eddie’s eyes zoom to the stain down the front of Richie’s shirt. “You’re all bloody for the party!”

“I’ll just borrow something! You got clothes besides those handsome little black suits, I assume?”

A vision of Richie stripping off to wear one of his more playfully colored shirts burns itself in Eddie’s brain. Talk about handsome.

“Uhm. Yeah. Of course.” Eddie blinks. He crosses over to the kitchen cabinets and starts pulling down his largest bowls and the red enameled fondue pot he definitely bought because it reminded him of Richie- _good gracious,_ does he have it bad. “After we get started, though,” he suggests. “In case, you know, cooking gets messy!” Or he gets completely derailed by the sight. Either/or.

Richie brandishes the bottle of cooking wine at him. “Of course! Now...” He sidesteps to stand behind Eddie, pressing his chest to his back, and pokes his arms through at his sides. “You be my apron, and I’ll be your hands! Where’s your corkscrew at?”

“Here,” Eddie offers, pulling open a drawer right in front of him. That was lucky. He isn’t quite prepared to make Richie let go of him, regardless of how short they are on time. He leans in while Richie hooks his chin over his shoulder and lets him take over. At least until the bottle’s open and a quarter of it ends up on his shoes, anyway. Julia Child, they ain’t.

Eddie rushes around, setting out a tablecloth and flowers and drinks and glasses and such, while Richie handles the slicing and dicing. That’s more wear and tear than Eddie’s recovering hand needs, they agree. He coaches Richie from the sidelines on when to add more flour and wine, and in return Richie advises which CDs to put in rotation for the night. Apparently there are surefire tracks with which to clear out a party when they’re ready to call it a night.

They make it to the bedroom to change while the fondue keeps warm on a barely lit burner. It’s nine on the dot, but maybe if they’re very lucky everyone will be fashionably late. Maybe they have enough time. 

“Maybe we could put a sign on the door? _‘Wrong Date on Invitation, Come Back Tomorrow!’”_ Richie suggests, when both their new shirts are half buttoned and they’re kissing their way from the wardrobe to the bed.

Eddie’s knees knock out from under him as he hits the edge. “I told at least five people in person to-”

“If they wanna stick around, they can have their own shindig in the lobby,” Richie reasons. He dives in after Eddie and snakes his way up his body. “We can leave out some bread and wine down there, they’ll love it!”

Eddie groans at the weight of him in an exquisite mixture of sorrow and delight. “I’m sorry...”

Richie just keeps kissing. “For what, hon?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Eddie laments, but he cranes up to get a taste of Richie’s neck, anyway. He’s built taller and broader than Eddie all over, with no hope of buttoning his borrowed collar closed. What a pity.

“Mmm, but we’re already doing it!” Richie chuckles. “Whatever this is is pretty good, wouldn’t ya say?”

It’s hard to argue with the cartwheels Eddie’s heart does when Richie laughs into a kiss like this, so he gives in. Eddie determines himself, pushing Richie over with his good hand. He rolls on top of him and makes the most of the moment, kissing everything within reach. Cheek, lips, jaw, neck, collarbone. He’ll be back for more tonight when the party's over, but he ought to bookmark his spot. And the _sounds_ Richie makes the lower he drags his tongue, resonating through his chest and into his mouth. If he had to nearly sever a few fingers for this, well! It might be a fair trade.

Unfortunately it’s followed all too soon by the buzzer for the front door.

“Here we go,” Eddie groans.

They finish tucking in and buttoning up while Eddie’s most painstakingly punctual driver, Lee and his wife make their way upstairs. He heard about Eddie’s little emergency from Paul, the office gossip, of course.

“He thought you’d cancel,” Lee shares, “I said no, not Mr. Kaspbrak. He might be in a sling or an iron lung when we show up, but nothing matters to that man like keeping an appointment.”

“You’re projecting, dear,” says Lee’s wife Stacey, with a pat of the arm. “Thank you for having us,” she smiles. “We always enjoy a company party.”

“I hope this stacks up to Walls Wharf,” says Eddie. “You can’t see Connecticut from here, but the skyline is pretty nice on the roof.”

“Who wants to look at Connecticut when you can finally get a gander at the boss’s place, huh?” Richie elbows him.

They all make introductions, and while they mingle at the door the buzzer heralds another wave of arrivals, then another, and soon enough, initiated guests are buzzing incoming guests in so Eddie can give tours.

When he’s sure he’s said hello to everyone else, he catches up with latecomer Donna while she and Myra have their drinks made by Richie.

“I can’t stay long, I’ve got an early one tomorrow,” Donna apologizes. “But I just had to see what you did with the space! The shelving wall is a great idea,” she says. “And I love this piece by the bar.”

Eddie turns his head to where she’s pointing, at a stylized ‘Bleecker Street’ sign with skewed proportions and outlandish colors. “Oh yeah! It looks great on the brick, doesn’t it?”

“Very cool,” Myra agrees.

“It was a gift from my neighbor,” Eddie explains. He looks around the crowd for him and nods in the right direction. “David, in the turtleneck by the window. "He’s a set designer, painter, art and theater kinda guy.”

Both women crane their necks.

“Oh! Is he, uh... you know?”

“I’m sure he’d sell you a piece if you’re interested! He’s got a bunch of New York street signs he just broke down from a show. You should talk to him, he’s fascinating.”

Richie hands Myra and Donna glasses with matching lime on the rim and clears his throat. “Anything you want I can get you, Spaghetti Man?”

Eddie flashes him a look. “A new nickname?”

Richie grins. “Coming right up, Bossy Pants. What’s your pleasure?”

“Gin,” Eddie says, already preparing himself to not react.

“Then how ‘bout a Sloe Screw?”

Eddie motions to Myra. “He’s funnier on TV, huh?”

Richie feigns offense. “I had you in _stitches_ this afternoon!”

“No, that was the doctor,” Eddie smirks back.

“You know what they say, ladies! Laughter is the best medicine but you’re only covered for an antibiotic.”

Eddie explains for the umpteenth time tonight what happened with his hand and the shots, and then peels away with Richie once his drink is made. Things might be a little quieter on the roof, and he could use a breather. It wouldn’t hurt to round up some of the glassware that’s undoubtedly been left behind, either. He and Richie take turns holding each other’s drinks while they vault through the window to the fire escape.

Outside, there’s no one but pedestrians some five stories below to see when Richie pens him in against the wall between windows. “You having fun in there?” he asks and sneaks a kiss under Eddie’s ear.

“Almost as much as out here.”

“How’s your hand?” Richie slides his grip down Eddie’s arm and catches him carefully around the wrist. He kisses that, too.

The mix of affection and alcohol and whatever’s left of the anesthetics from the hospital has Eddie feeling no pain. “It just feels kinda heavy and dumb,” he tells Richie. His shoulder makes a nice place to rest it though, while they kiss.

As quickly as Richie cornered him, he pulls away again and nudges Eddie towards the stairs. While they climb, two smokers make their way out the window and light up. Richie must’ve seen them coming out the corner of his eye.

There turns out to be a confab of a few neighbors happening up on the roof, as it is a shared space, after all. Someone has turned on a string of lights that pre-date Eddie, and there’s just enough bench left for he and Richie to take a load off for a while.

“Well, welcome to the building, Eddie,” toasts David.

Marcy and Keith, who live below him, and kiddie-corner Carl all raise their glasses.

“Thanks,” says Eddie. “I feel like I should’ve had your business card in my pocket tonight.”

“Oh, yeah! I talked to your friend there, Donna the realtor.” David digs into his pocket and comes out with his wallet, from which he picks out a card. “For you,” he says.

Richie elbows Eddie when he takes it. “In case you get locked out, huh? Wouldn’t wanna blow your cover Spider-Manning up the building.”

“Anytime,” David smiles.

“Thanks. Marcy, did you bring the cheesecake? What a hit!”

“Did you get a slice?” she checks.

“Sadly, no.”

They all compare notes on the snacks savored and the nearby institutions where more can be procured and agree that they’ll have to do this again sometime. As the evening wears on, they sit and shoot the breeze with whoever comes wandering up until the crowd thins in search of refills. Then they’re alone for a while, just joking around while Eddie tries to pry more details out of Richie about this morning’s meeting.

“Alright, alright,” Richie groans. “I’ll tell you the truth!” He swings around one leg to straddle the bench, and Eddie does the same.

He kicks his toe at Richie’s. “So you’re _not_ replacing Willard Scott?” Eddie teases. Not that it’s entirely out of the realm of possibility.

“Nah, him and Gumbel kissed and made up,” Richie dismisses. Then he leans in, licking his lip conspiratorially. “But you gotta swear to keep this to yourself if I tell you...”

Eddie leans in. “You can trust me.”

“I know I can trust you, I fed you a chunk of fondue right out of my hands, didn’t I?” Richie pinches his fingers right into Eddie’s face.

“You did, you barbarian!” He snaps his teeth at Richie. “Next time use the fork!”

 _“Use the fork, Luke,”_ Richie mocks back. “C’mon, Obi-Wan Ke No Fun! It was the last bite! I was being chivalrous lettin’ you at it.”

“Well, I _know_ it’s not a PSA on food hygiene, at least,” Eddie laughs.

“Nah, it’s a PSA on the dangers of coffee. Turns out it really _does_ put hairs on your chest!” Richie says, popping open a button and primping. “I drink it every day, see? It’s an epidemic! What they don’t wantcha to know is there’s been a rash of werewolf sightings at the Folgers factory, and _American Werewolf in London_ was _really_ a documentary! They just misspelled Americano!”

“Uhuh, okay, I’ll buy it,” Eddie beams and bites his lip. He keeps darting back down to Richie’s next button and wondering how long til he can pop that one too. “So, what? We’re just supposed to give coffee up?”

“Well, not if you don’t mind getting wild once in a blue moon,” Richie smolders at him.

“Yeah, but how often is that?”

“Eyy!” Richie cracks a toothy grin and points finger guns at Eddie. “I didn’t get the meteorology job, how am I supposed to know?”

Eddie laughs. “So you’re not gonna tell me the truth then?”

Richie sighs and shakes his head. “Not yet, buddy. I don’t wanna get too excited until I know a little more. Or sued.”

Eddie sits back, understanding. “Fair enough,” he tells Richie. He’s got his own pie in the sky, after all. “You oughta write that PSA, though.”

“Aw shucks,” Richie twinkles appreciatively.

In the conversational lull Eddie hears the latest disc of music he put on start to repeat itself. “Ah, I should go down and change that,” he remarks to Richie. Without his right hand to steady himself as he stands up again, he tips into Richie.

He catches Eddie and stands with him. “I drink you’ve had enough to think, mister!”

“Oh shush!” Eddie giggles, but he allows Richie to convey him back down to the apartment. The helping hand at his waist doesn’t hurt one bit.

“Is it ABBA time?” Richie asks hopefully. He gives Eddie a little tug before they duck back in through the window, and herds him into their secret little patch of wall from before. “I’m telling ya, ‘Thank You For The Music’ clears the room like a charm.”

In just an hour- maybe less- they’ll have the place to themselves for the night. Eddie would shiver at the thought if he didn’t have Richie’s warm body pinning him to the wall.

“I hope so, I can’t exactly see people off with a firm handshake and ‘ _Thanks for coming’_ right now.”

“Funny,” Richie says, a breath away from a kiss. “That’s exactly what I was thinking of giving you as a night ender.”

They close the window when they come back inside to head off any afterhours stowaways. Richie switches up the music and sets it low, while Eddie starts cramming any perishables that are still out into the fridge. He’ll have to get real friendly with some kitchen gloves tomorrow, but the dishes will keep until after Richie’s visit.

_Richie Richie Richie..._

Eddie watches him across the room while he smiles and nods to some late night stragglers, waiting his turn. Just five more and one in the bathroom- then four- then three.

Joey offered to take a bag of trash on his way out, so he follows Eddie around to collect the last of the wayward paper plates. The coffee table between the two couches is particularly laden, where it isn’t propping up Cliff’s feet.

“Hey, pal,” Joey knees him. “It’s closing time.”

Cliff just sort of smacks his lips and slumps into the corner of the couch.

“Uh oh.”

Eddie finishes scooping plates off the table and looks up. “What?”

Joey gathers the top of the bag into one hand so he can give Cliff’s shoulder a shake. “Cliff. Hey! Cliff...”

“Oh boy,” Eddie sighs. This can’t be good.

“I think he overdid it.”

The music is off now, and everyone’s attention gathers to the sitting area.

“Is he okay?” asks David, hands full of glasses.

“He’s just out like a light,” Joey says, on closer inspection. He turns back to Eddie, looking embarrassed. “He was really bent out of shape about what happened in the garage, drinking a little too hard.”

“That wasn’t his fault,” Eddie frowns. He didn’t really make an effort to make nice with Cliff tonight, though. He didn’t mean to give the kid such a case of nerves.

Richie comes up alongside him, and Eddie swears he can _feel_ the way he wants to put his arm around him, but doesn’t. “Nah, it was an accident.”

Joey gives Cliff another shake but his head just falls back in a snore. “Uh. I’d give him a ride home, but I dunno where he lives, do you?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Myra would know, but she just left.” It’ll be way too late to ask by the time she gets home to Queens. Eddie’s heart sinks. “Well. Uhm, everybody- thank you. I think... I guess I should just let him sleep it off.”

Richie catches his apologetic eye. He gives Eddie’s back a bit too hearty of a thump. “Yeah! He’ll probably wake up to take a whizz in an hour or two and you can put him in a cab,” he says.

“Sure you don’t want me to try and take him home?” Joey asks.

“I can give you a hand getting him downstairs,” David offers.

“No, no.” As much as Eddie would love to simply not have this hiccup, he can’t pawn off his problems on Joey. “Thanks fellas.”

They finish helping with the mess and then they say goodnight and take their leave. Eddie wavers at the door, hand on the dimmer switch. The kitchen is dark, the dining area is dark, the living room, and the bed- but none of them are really private. That wasn’t supposed to matter when he was finally living alone.

Richie meets Eddie by the door, where at least they’re behind Cliff, still snoring.

“So,” he says. “We got a hitch.”

“I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry.”

Richie smiles through their shared disappointment. “Look, I’m not gonna try to talk you into anything,” he says quietly. “I want you to be comfortable if we’re gonna do this, and man- it was already a _long_ day.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “And you’ve got work tomorrow.”

Unfortunately he was looking forward to sleeping beside Richie as much as anything that might have happened in prelude, and now that’s off the table, too.

“Maybe in the morning, if this guy slings his hook,” Richie says. He reaches out and gently takes Eddie’s wounded hand, kissing his wrist like before.

Eddie takes a breath. “Would you still kiss me goodn-”

But before he can finish asking, Richie leans in.


	3. Chapter 3

Undoubtedly mortified by his own behavior, Cliff is long gone when Eddie’s groggy eyes open to the patch of sun crawling across his bed. His head pangs from his own excessive consumption on a level that rivals the ache in his hand. Gingerly as he can, he gets out of bed and sorts himself out in the bathroom. He shakes out an extra two pills for Richie, then ambles over to the pull-out where he slept the night. Since his internal clock is set for California, he’s still deep asleep.

When he wakes up, he’ll probably have a hangover, too, and then they’ll have to clean up to get Richie to another big meeting with even bigger NBC honchos before his flight out. Then, when he’s home and out of range again, it will be obvious what a failure this all was.

This might be as close as he gets to waking up with someone he loves, Eddie thinks miserably, so he sits on what space there is between Richie and the edge of the cot, hoping this bit of familiarity is still all right for friends. The springs creak and rock Richie in the middle. With a sharp inhale he rolls his head back and feels out for the disturbance.

“Ugh, shit,” he mutters, prying his eyes open in tacky blinks. “Slept in my contacts.” Richie shields his eyes from the morning light.

“You want some Advil?”

Richie flips his hand around from shield to receptacle and swallows them dry before he realizes Eddie brought him water. “God, you’re an angel.” Slightly less parched, he sits up and gives Eddie a kiss on the cheek as he slides out of bed.

So. Maybe not a complete failure. Eddie melts into the bed in boneless shock.

When Richie comes back from taking his contacts out, he makes no fuss about Eddie being already curled up in his place. He drags himself up the pull-out, such as it is, and crowds up behind Eddie. He slings an arm over him and scrubs his scratchy cheek at the back of his neck, and Eddie’s never felt anything so wonderful in his whole life.

“Whazzat say?” he mumbles, holding his watch where Eddie can see.

“Four something, but it’s wrong,” Eddie tells him. “It’s seven.”

Richie bleats in objection. He knows as well as Eddie does they should get out here by nine thirty. He hooks his arm around Eddie’s middle and sighs into his shoulder. “Mind if we just-”

“Mmhmm.”

“-until the Advil kicks in.”

And then a little longer.  
  
  
-

  
Eddie doesn’t take it personally when Richie opts to sit in the back of the stretch. His throat’s audibly strained from too little water and too much party, so he chomps on ice and ginger ale from the mini fridge while they make their way to Midtown. This is the way things are meant to be, on the clock. _A back seat, a front seat, and a window in between._

When Richie spills his drink as they pull up to the plaza, Eddie tells him as much. “Really, don’t worry about it! It’s the job,” he insists. “Go. Break a leg!”

“Thanks, Boss.” Richie knocks on the window on his way out, then disappears.

Eddie double checks his parking reservation, then circles around the block to find the entrance for the subterranean lot. Once he’s got the back cleaned out he can find somewhere to get a coffee and look over his binder of monthlies. If he wasn’t holding out for Richie’s meeting to maybe- _just possibly-_ wrap up an hour early, he’d head back to the office for a while, but after this morning’s cuddle, hope springs eternal. He’ll stay close in case they beep him.

Finally, Eddie gets in back and rolls down a window so he can just chuck the mess of ice cubes out. Careful to only use his good fingers, he plucks them from the floor, quick as he can before they melt. There’s a handful on the seat too.

“Good grief. Did he get any of it _in_ his mouth?” 

There’s a towel in the trunk he can use to blot the soda out of the carpet, though he’ll want to give it a shampoo next time they’re back at the garage. Without thinking, Eddie puts his full weight on his injured hand to heave himself back out of the car, and boy, does he see stars.

_“Jesus Christ!”_

Maybe he threw away that ice too soon! Eddie slouches down for a few minutes, eyes clenched, waiting for the pain to subside. It hadn’t been so bad to drive with, really. He relied on his thumb and the heel of his hand to handle the wheel. He’s just got to remember to baby it the rest of the time, too. When Eddie opens his eyes again, he checks that his bandage isn’t bleeding through. No. No, that’s good. It doesn’t look like he tore his stitches.

Then he notices a flash of nearby color that wasn’t there a moment before.

“You sleeping on the job, lazybones?” Richie crouches at the open door.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I asked reception where you’d park. Tartikoff missed his flight back from London, and that’s the guy I gotta see that I didn’t meet with yesterday-”

“What?” Eddie scrambles back one handed while Richie climbs in after him. “This trip has been such a disaster. Is everything okay? Is your- your project still okay?”

Richie drops himself on the seat next to Eddie. “Yeah, but I gotta come do this again tomorrow when he’s back.”

“Tomorrow?” 

“I’ll have to cancel some press back in LA and find another time for a fitting-”

What a trainwreck. Eddie winces. “I’m sorry, Richie. I feel like the last twenty four hours have been _cursed.”_

“Hey!” Richie turns to him grinning from ear to ear. “No, really! This is okay! _Whenever_ it happens, the meeting is totally gonna be worth it.” He sneaks a hand to Eddie’s lap and rubs his thumb at the back of his hand. “Accidents happen! Plans change! Hey- are _you_ still available?”

“Oh, right!” Eddie shakes himself to sense. “I guess can extend your booking, and drive you-”

Richie licks his lip. “That’s great, but I meant, do you still wanna... do whatever else we’re doing?”

As Eddie’s heart throbs, so does his awareness of his hand. He brings it to his chest to elevate for a moment. “I- I- if I can?” he stammers. “I don’t know how great I’d be at- at that right now.”

“Buddy,” Richie sighs. He reaches out to his face and cups his cheek. “I didn’t just come here to get my rocks off, I wanna spend time with you, busted wing and all.”

“You do?” Eddie swallows a hopeful lump in his throat.

Richie nods and leans closer. “I’d rather be here when you need me than not. Whaddaya say, we go back to your place? I’ll take care of the dishes.”

“That _does_ sound good,” Eddie smiles.

“I’m happy to help,” Richie hums, dipping his head. He noses into Eddie cheek and starts dotting a line of soft little kisses along his jaw, inch by inch. “Then we could rent a video. Snuggle up. Take it easy... See where the day takes us.”

The heat of his breath hovers at the corner of Eddie’s mouth and the memory of the last time they shared a bed to watch a rental comes to mind. Eddie groans and interrupts Richie’s sweet little parade with a hungry, filthy kiss. He licks and bites and grips Richie back as close as he can and then pulls himself still closer. Somehow, despite everything that’s gone wrong, Richie is still here and wanting him. That kind of winning hand trumps everything else.

“Jesus, Eddie,” Richie mumbles, kissing him and pawing. “You’re so hot. Such a sleeper hit. Who knew that skinny Kaspbrak kid had it in him?”

Eddie chuckles and slings his arm around Richie’s neck where it will be safely out of the way. _“You_ were always handsome.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “I was _tall,”_ he corrects before going in for another kiss.

It tugs at the space in Eddie’s chest dedicated to Richie that he doesn’t think of himself as being attractive. Maybe he’s atypical for a Hollywood leading man type, too ginger, or not particularly chiseled, but that’s their problem, not his. He’s got sparkly blue eyes, and an easy blush, and an absolutely darling little dimple in his chin Eddie _cannot_ stop sweeping with his thumb as they kiss. And really! Richie could have a face like a foot and he’d still have an utterly magnetic personality. He’s cool and slippery and sunny and makes you feel young and wonderful, like a summer day.

“I do like how big you are,” Eddie tells him as Richie leans him back along the seat, covering him. “Never have to look very hard for you in a crowd. And your _arms,”_ Eddie swoons. “When you pinned me last night...”

Every time he had boxed Eddie in against a wall for a stolen kiss, his touch fell to those strong arms. Solid under that borrowed shirt, bare and silken where he’d rolled the too-short sleeves. The way his arms held Eddie tight to him this morning, so sure. Eddie can’t wait to be held by him again, with nothing in between.

“I thought you’d end up on the floor if I didn’t,” Richie laughs into his neck. He slides his hands to Eddie’s hips and pins him down. “You’re like an ice cream cone.”

To prove his point, Richie licks him up quick.

“Geez, Richie.” Eddie squirms and he doubles down by nipping his teeth at Eddie’s ear. A flush of heat plunges straight down to Eddie’s stomach.

“Can I do something naughty? Please?” Richie whispers. He closes his mouth around Eddie’s lobe, wet and hot.

“Uhnn. _Yes.”_ Eddie doesn’t even need to hear what it is first, Richie’s welcome to rip his whole ear off, apparently.

“I wanna suck your cock.”

Eddie shivers. _“Please.”_

Richie drags a hand from Eddie’s hip to the front of his pants and rubs. His fingers hook into the fly and pull at the button until it gives way. “I wanna make you feel good, honey.”

If it’s at all possible to beat the way Eddie’s already going into some kind of sublime electrical overload.

He jolts as Richie wraps a hand around him and gives him an introductory squeeze. _“Ah!_ Oh God, I never, I never, uh-”

Richie kisses his lips one more time before pushing away to slide down.

“I know you never had anyone touch you before,” he says, settling on the floor. “Though I can’t believe it.” He pumps Eddie while he gets comfortable between his knees, panting through a grin. “Look at this pretty thing.”

That wouldn’t be in the top ten of adjectives Eddie would use to describe his own penis, but it’s hard to argue with a man who’s got such an intimate hold of him. _Hard,_ yes. That would be a fair start to the list. _Throbbing,_ too. Then _wet_ as Richie bows his head to him. And _inside._ He’s certainly never had it inside anyone before.

“Please, please,” he whimpers, watching Richie suck him down. At first, his lips venture only as far as to meet his fingers, circled tight just under the head. Then he gives another, longer stroke, rolling the skin down his length and chasing it with his whole mouth. Tongue envelopes the sensitive tip, then throat. _“Uhn_ , Richie. _God.”_

Richie makes a gracious noise and bobs up and down again, giving him a faster stroke.

“Oh, _more._ More please! _Oh_ , oh...”

With the edge of Eddie’s fevered senses, he hears something. From elsewhere in the garage, there is the echoing clack of high heeled shoes, at first distant but steadily drawing nearer. He holds tight to Richie’s shoulder, wondering if he’ll stop, but he doesn’t. Should he? Does he hear it? Does he care?

“Ah, ah, someone’s coming,” Eddie warns, as Richie keeps working his mouth on him. “Someone’s coming, Richie. Oh hell... They’re gonna- gonna- I’m-!”

Suddenly Richie pulls off. “Do you want me to stop?”

 _“No,”_ Eddie breathes, and slaps a hand over his mouth, lest he be heard. 

Richie takes him into his mouth again, and chuckles deep in his chest, vibrating around him in ruthless mirth, and the footsteps draw closer still.

“Mmff! Just a little more- _Richie- Richie,”_ Eddie begs between his fingers. They’re too close now, and _he’s_ too close, and Richie doesn’t want to stop either. 

He casts his smiling eyes up to Eddie with full acceptance of the consequences, full acceptance of _him._ His off hand finds Eddie’s on the seat and he brushes his wrist like he had before. Like Eddie is starting to take as their own special gesture. He really does make Eddie feel good- like the most important, most adored thing in the world.

Eddie muffles a cry in his hand as he comes, and Richie doesn’t miss a beat. He stays with the buck of Eddie’s hips like it’s no surprise at all and swallows him down. He’s still licking his lips as the footsteps fade away again.

“Thank God for tinted windows, huh?”

“Huh,” Eddie huffs back. “Holy shit.” He covers his mouth again, embarrassed.

Richie plants his fists on the edge of the seat and levers up to kiss him. “I always wanted to get some in the back of a limo,” he grins.

After twenty years in the business, Eddie knows he’s hardly the first person with that particular fantasy.

“But did you imagine getting it from the driver?” he pants.

“Not until recently,” Richie admits. He climbs back up to sit, and Eddie is flustered anew at the sight of his knees, wet from the remaining ginger ale. 

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t get to towel up back here yet,” says Eddie, moving to get up. “I should do that before it gets sticky. No, wait- I should do you! _Hsshh!”_ He narrowly avoids his hand again, trying to reposition.

“Hey!” Richie catches him before he can go anywhere.

Eddie shakes the stinging sensation out of his hand while Richie hisses in sympathy. _“Ugh,_ I keep forgetting-“

“Eddie baby, darlin’, _gorgeous._ There’s no rush! Let’s head back to HQ for a little R&R,” he says, giving Eddie a squeeze. “Then you can ambush me when I least expect it.”  
  


-  
  


If Eddie wasn’t already inordinately fond of Richie, watching him have a go at a couple sinks worth of dishes on his behalf might have done the trick. He insists Eddie not lift a finger- he’s down to eight, after all- and treats him to an impression of Underwater Captain Kirk, complete with popping bubbles and interfering sea aliens. It’s almost a better show than their rental, but that comes with the benefit of having Richie in reach. 

Eddie tucks up into his side, where Richie can get his fill of combing through his hair. It makes him sort of jealous of all the teen girls of the world who long ago discovered the joy of brushing and braiding and prettying each other up. Why couldn’t he and Richie have done this when they were boys? Why didn’t his mother ever dote on him like that? Sure, he and his friends used to roughhouse and dance and make up patty cake games once upon a time, but then they all drifted. He’s been an island for so long, untouched by civilization. Probably his most reliable source of physical contact for years now has been giving the sign of peace at Mass, shaking hands with so many people. No wonder he’s putty now that Richie’s back. It was always Richie, of all his friends, who he sought the attention of. He nitpicked his jokes and pouted and put up a fuss until Richie noticed him and gave him a tackle or a pinch or a hug. No one else would do. 

Glasses long since discarded, Eddie oozes his way down until his head’s in Richie’s lap, pillowed on his thigh. The blunt of Richie’s nails rake at his scalp and tickles his neck, setting him tingling all down his spine. He’s so into it, he doesn’t realize he’s been kneading Richie’s leg the same way until he finally brushes against something else.

“Mm! Sorry, I’m teasing you.”

“You’re absolutely welcome to.” Richie curls his fingers into Eddie’s hair and gives it a light tug. “I thought you were doing it on purpose.”

That little bit of antagonization spurs Eddie on like always. “Oh, you’ll _know_ when I’m doing it on purpose,” he smirks.

This is it, make or break. He takes a breath and skates his hand up over the hard ridge in Richie’s pants.

“Hmm, _nope.”_ Richie knocks his own head like a block of wood. “I know nothing. Nada. Only slide whistle noises up in here,” he says, and blows a _fweeoop_ between his teeth.

Eddie chuckles. “I wouldn’t go that far. You know how to make me crazy, that’s for sure.” 

“Takes one to know one.”

That’s what Eddie’s hoping. He lays his hand firm on the shape of Richie’s erection and rubs in earnest. Enough with teasing. He’ll listen close like he always does, he’ll react when Richie reacts. He’ll make it good because _everything_ is made better when they share it.

Careful of his stitches, Eddie props himself up on his other elbow so he can look up at Richie while he touches him. “That feel all right?” he asks.

Richie inhales, sharp. “God yeah. You could do just that if you want.”

Eddie bends to press a kiss to the top of his thigh. “I want to _really_ touch you,” he mumbles against him, wishing it was flesh instead of fabric. Only one way to make that happen. “Would you take these off?”

“You’re the boss,” Richie wheezes. “However you want.”

His belt tinks as he unbuckles and Eddie sits up, out of the way. He watches openly this time, as Richie exposes himself. Sky blue briefs sliding down over freckled hips, until his cock springs free, standing rooted in his darker, more abundant hair.

Eddie gulps and shifts up to the edge of his seat on the couch. He could kneel, or Richie could stand- which might give him fewer obstacles. 

“Maybe- come here?” 

Without hesitation, Richie pushes off to stand. His cock bobs ahead of him at Eddie’s eye level, though he does make an effort to cup it back. “Keeping me on my toes,” Richie grins, standing in front of him. “Same as always.”

Eddie reaches for his bare hips with both hands and flirts with the hem of his shirt. He slides up under, relishing this unlimited access to his body. The smooth planes of his back, the dip of his spine, and the swell of his rear are all a wonder. The feel of someone one else’s soft skin has never taken up all of his touch like this, not that he can remember. Once he’s made a good sweep, Eddie carefully folds his bad hand at Richie’s back and leads him even closer with the other. He tastes the warmblooded smell of his body now, as he leans forward. He ghosts his mouth at Richie’s hip, and down his arm where he holds himself. He’s still gathering the nerve to fully connect, to put his hand around his cock and his watering mouth, but brushing his lips across the fuzz of his body hair is plenty compelling. They both raise goosebumps.

“Shit, Eddie.” Fingers thread into his hair again. 

“Mmm...” He kisses Richie’s knuckles then takes over his grip on himself. The angle is backwards and upside down, but otherwise he recognizes the heated feeling of a cock in his hand. He can do this. “I’m not as handy with my left,” Eddie apologizes. 

Richie laughs. “Yeah, I’ve seen the damage you can do with a pair of cutters!”

Eddie wrinkles his nose up at him. “Scared to take your chances?”

 _“Uhng.”_ Richie closes his eyes at a vindictive stroke. “God no, honey. I get what you’re saying. _Unff._ If you need, I can help.”

 _“Thank you,”_ Eddie breathes.

Then he goes for it. He opens his mouth and slips his tongue under the head of Richie’s cock and closes all around. Undoubtedly Richie was working backwards from numerous experiences with oral sex, but Eddie has only the one. He sucks the tip like Richie did for him, and feels him swell, feels him lock his fingers into his hair and rock on his feet a little, too.

“That’s _so_ nice, babe,” Richie says. “You make me so hard, and you’re so damn pretty. So pretty sucking me...”

Eddie’s already been blushing, the only answer he can give to flattery is increased enthusiasm. He plays with Richie’s whole length, making the skin roll down as he strokes, then back up and over his tongue, trapping it against the head. The taste and smell of him floods Eddie’s senses. It’s manly and earthy and makes him want to go somewhere very warm and dark with Richie. They should surround themselves with only the sense of the other.

Maybe they ought to have started this with less clothes, but it’s not too late. Eddie pulls off of Richie for a moment so they can coordinate. He looks up at him, red faced and chewing his lip. He already looks utterly _indecent,_ why not go all the way?

“I want you naked,” Eddie tells him.

“Yes sir,” Richie huffs, immediately letting go of Eddie to comply. He shoves his pants down past where they catch on his thighs and lets them drop. He steps out and kicks them aside and then starts unbuttoning his shirt, watching Eddie do the same like he just brought out a wheelbarrow full of his favorite candy. “I feel like this deserves some kinda fanfare,” he says. “The one and only Eddie Kaspbrak, in the flesh! _Ba ba ba ba ba bahhh!”_ Richie cups his hands and makes a sound like a roaring crowd.

Eddie grins. “This is quite the turn out.”

“It's a hot ticket!” Richie comes and leans over the couch while Eddie undresses, arms stretched to the head rest. “You wouldn’t believe it, I had to blow a guy to get in here!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well ‘had to’ is misleading...” Richie rumbles, close to his ear.

Eddie finishes wriggling out of his pants while they kiss. As soon as he has his hands free, he’s feeling his full of Richie again, this time from the front. His fingers follow the taut of his muscles as he bridges over him, starting at his shoulders and down his solid body. He scratches into his wooly chest and down the trail to his waiting cock.

“I want you so much,” Eddie groans, getting a hold of him again.

“Come get it.”

Their mutual appreciation pretty much takes over after that. Despite his handicap, Eddie gives as good as he got this morning, and then finds himself with Richie between his knees, once again. After, he climbs up onto the couch with Eddie, mushing mustached kisses to his stomach and making a pillow there. Eddie rewinds their movie some, because while he gave in to Richie’s insistence that he suck Eddie off again very quickly, he’s in no rush now. He could draw this out for hours. The warmth of skin against skin, the feel of Richie’s hair between his fingers, the smell of his sweat- it's all gold. With Richie blanketed on top of him, he feels like one of those precious bars being pressed into shape indelibly. The serial number will forever commemorate when and where he was made into Richie’s lover.

“Now I owe you again,” Eddie muses.

“Yep,” Richie chuckles. “I guess we’ll just have to keep going. Fair’s fair.”

Eddie takes a moment to imagine himself as some sort of modern Scherezade, keeping Richie on the hook from one rendezvous to the next, holding off the inevitable. Maybe he really can keep this going, one item from _The Joys of Gay Sex_ ’s table of contents at a time. 

“Any idea when you’ll be back to collect?”

“Depends on if you’re willing to put up collateral.” Richie picks up Eddie’s good wrist this time and scopes his watch. “This is a nice piece. It’d look good next to mine...”

“What’re you gonna do with _two_ watches?” Eddie teases.

“I dunno, what’re you doing with _two_ blowjobs I gave you?”

“Wondering what I waited so long for, mostly.”

Richie lets go of his hand again, chuckling. “Eh, you can keep it. I just remembered I still have your ring.” He shifts onto his elbows and climbs the rest of the way up Eddie’s chest. 

“Oh! You have it?” Eddie had lost track of it after the First Aid pit stop at the office.

“Mine for now,” Richie claims with a kiss. 

_Yes,_ Eddie thinks. _Mine for now._

“-And I’ll know better about next time after tomorrow. Just making the most of today in the meanwhile,” Richie tells him, and kisses Eddie again.

His jaw aches opening to it, but he’s too content to care.  
  


-

Eddie’s return to reality is jarring. After taking Richie back to JFK he heads into the office for the rest of the day. While he’s tender-handedly sorting through the paperwork that’s piled up on his desk, Ma calls. With the few seconds warning he gets from Myra, he tries to remember when they last spoke, and realizes his mistake. Since being in La La Land with Richie, he completely failed to call her.

“Hello? Ma? I’m sorry I-“

“Eddie, where have you _been?”_ Ma launches in, sounding distraught. “I didn’t hear from you yesterday and you’re _late_ today and then when I called Renita- remember Renita the nurse? _She_ saw you in the Emergency Room on Thursday!”

Oh, _that’s_ why he had it in his head to avoid North Shore. Damn it. He just went where the first ER said there was more stock of shots. At least it took her a full forty-eight hours without contact to start calling hospitals, or else she’d probably have had a cab take her to his apartment by now.

Eddie takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Ah yeah, Ma, nothing to worry about. Just a scratch at work,” he says, looking down at the incident report he’s still filling out in front of him. “I thought it’d be best to update my shots, just to be safe.”

“You know you have to _watch_ them open fresh needles, Eddie, don’t you?” 

“I do, Ma, I know it’s very-“

“-that’s the way they spread it, Eddie, to the good, _clean_ people-“

Eddie’s blood runs cold. “I’m sure your friend’s hospital is very clean,” he says, hoping he sounds cheery enough to pass muster. At the very least, he’s long since learned to feed her own language back to her. “And I feel good- terrific, now.”

Ma sniffs. “I'll see for myself tomorrow. If you’re still taking me to Mass, that is...”

They’d been making progress with the new routine and now he’s gone and thrown a spanner in the works. Time for a reset.

“Of course, I am,” Eddie reassures her. “But why wait? How about I come over for dinner and stay the night, tonight?”

That gets her off the phone at least, so he can get through the rest of the paperwork on his desk.

He gets back to his incident report.

 _Has he told his supervisor about the injury?_ He is the supervisor. _Has he injured this part of his body before?_ Who hasn’t busted their hand on something at some point? _Follow up action needed?_ Talking his mother off the ledge.

Eddie has to take a deep breath before moving on to the next miscellaneous document in his pile. Then he reads it and he has to take another.

Cliff quit. He put in his notice yesterday while Eddie was out of the office. At the party, Joey said he’d been nervous about the accident, but then he must have been _beyond_ embarrassed to wake up afterward. Eddie has no idea how late that might have been- all he knows for sure is Cliff was still passed out when he and Richie got a little careless in the shadows.

Wasn’t he?

Throat dry from all this deep breathing, Eddie takes his mug into the front office to visit the cooler. He eyes Myra carefully, wondering if it’s worth gently investigating. 

“Were you here when Cliff left his notice?”

Myra looks up. “Uh, no actually,” she says. “He put it on my desk while I wasn’t in the room.”

“But was he around for a while? Yesterday?” Eddie tries to take a sip of nothing while masking his uncertain frown. “Oh...”

“I think he tinkered around in the garage for a few hours then went home _‘sick’.”_ Myra clears her throat

While Eddie finally fills his mug, he thinks. Surely if Cliff had seen something he didn’t want to see, he wouldn’t have risked _hours_ of possibly running into him. If his drinking at the party proved anything, it was that he was too anxious a person to cope with that. He must have thought things were salvageable until the weight of his hangover won out.

“That’s a shame,” Eddie decides. “I should call him and ask him if he’d reconsider.”

Myra gives him a soft look. “Even after the party? You’re a saint, Ed.”

“Let he who has not made a drunken spectacle of himself in front of an employer cast the first stone,” he smiles back.

“It was a fun night, though. I had a great time- _we both did_ ,” says Myra, switching gears. “I finally had an excuse to introduce Donna to work people. Now she’s got faces to go with names.”

She looks so happy at that, Eddie can’t just brush it off. He wants to be happy, too.

“Worlds collide,” he nods understandingly. He double checks the hallway, but even if there’s no one else to overhear, it’s not his place to disclose that he also had a special friend at the party when it would so obviously have been Richie. “I’m glad you two enjoyed yourselves,” he says simply, and heads back into his office.  
  


-

Driving back from his mother’s on Sunday night, Eddie fantasizes about what he’ll do when he gets home. He’ll change this absurdly huge bandage Ma put on him after insisting she take a look, for a start. He’ll have a drink, and no one will break down in tears about him overdoing it because he’s having a second glass. He won’t take his temperature just because he felt like reclining on the couch for a bit, ‘too early’. Hell, maybe he’ll go knock on David’s door and borrow a can of paint and a brush and slap up a mural sized reminder on his walls, STOP GIVING INTO HER.

What he really, _really_ wants to do is call someone and decompress, but his options are limited. Ma made sure that until recently, she was his sole confidante. None of the employees he considers friends have the whole scope of his personal life, and shouldn’t anyway, and his burgeoning relationships with his neighbors are much too new for this sort of baggage. There’s Richie, of course, the only person who would understand both his history with his mother, _and_ what Eddie is presently protecting by doing as he does- but Eddie simply doesn’t know if that’s allowed. He doesn’t have a baseline for what’s appropriate with friends or while dating, _which they’re not doing._ Whatever they _are_ doing- they just saw each other for three days, is it too much to want to talk to Richie already? Eddie doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to hassle him while he’s busy, and it’s hard to catch a good moment with the time difference and both their schedules. But then, even if Richie is available and looking to talk to him, that doesn’t mean he should be expected to hear out all his problems like some kind of late night radio program.

This is why people go into therapy, isn’t it?

Eddie makes his way up to his apartment, deciding that he’ll give that some thought and meanwhile play it by ear with Richie. He’ll be in touch as soon as he’s got his ducks in a row, anyway.

He gets his new bandage, he gets his wine, he puts on some music, and heads into the bedroom to check the answering machine like he always does for Ma’s messages- though it’d be an all time record if she was already pining for him just an hour past spending a full day together. Expected or not, the little red number blinks 01 until Eddie hits the playback button.

_“Hey Boss Man. I thought I was calling so late, I might get in trouble with you, but I guess you’re not in tonight. Just wanted to let you know I got in all right, and I appear to have stolen one of your facecloths, packing up my contacts. You can tell the police currently dusting your apartment for fingerprints to go home- it was me, John Robie AKA ‘The Cat’-”_

“Cary Grant, really?”

_“-And I’ll be back for that soap dish next... I advise you to call me and come to terms before I rob you blind. Cheers, dahling!”_

Eddie giggles to himself while the tape plays out, then picks up the receiver. He dials and throws himself back into the pillows while it rings.

“Hello, this is Pizza Palace,” greets the other end, chewily.

“Aw, did I catch you in the middle of dinner?”

“Heyyyy,” Richie says, recognizing him with a grin that's obvious even through the phone. “Your order might take a while, our delivery boys can only cover about a thousand miles a day.”

“No really,” Eddie chuckles. “I’ll call back if you want.”

Richie blows a raspberry. “It’s just as good cold, that’s the beauty of it!”

“If you say so!”

Ma had always been extremely suspicious of delivery food, let alone consuming it the next day without nuking potential germs. Eddie fears his chance to develop a taste for cold pizza has long since passed him by. He takes a sip of his drink and closes his eyes, imagining Richie across from him, digging into party leftovers the other night.

“I’m just about done anyway. Let me clean up, real quick?”

“Sure!”

Eddie lays back and listens to Richie, distantly puttering around his kitchen and whistling ‘Sing for Your Supper’. He gargles the chorus and then comes back to the phone with a refreshed _Ahh..._

“I got your message,” Eddie says. “Sorry I missed you, I just got back from my mother’s.”

“I shoulda guessed. How was she?”

“Eh... Not good,” Eddie admits. “But we don’t have to talk about that. I wanna hear what’s going on with NBC.”

“Now, now!” Richie tuts. “There’ll be time for both! But never end on a ballad, Eddie! We’ll get your Ma squared away and then I will cheer you up with some truly mahhhvelous news.”

“You promise?”

“Cross my heart, honey. What happened?”

Why does he have to be so perfect? It would be so much easier if he was a little cold or more self-centered. Then Eddie wouldn’t have to guard himself for the day this all dries up.

He pushes his hair back off his face and digs in, his fingers self-punishingly hard. “Well, so- Saturday night was the first time I’ve stayed overnight at the house since moving out. In my old room, and everything-”

“I’m picturing a candlelit Eddie shrine-“

Eddie snorts. “Basically. She keeps it _locked_ now, so the cleaners won’t disturb anything. And I asked her about it, and I got the impression that her new thing is locking herself in there whenever there are cleaners, or the gardener, or a handyman, or whoever around.”

“Got a case of the Havishams,” Richie cringes.

“And there’s people around a lot! It’s a big place and I can’t be going out there every time she throws a spoon down the garbage disposal to get my attention,” Eddie mutters, aside from his point.

There’s a scoffing chuckle on the other end. “Did she do that?”

“Three days after I left. It was my _baby spoon,”_ Eddie explains. “She would have had to unpack it, there’s no way it was an accident.”

“A little on the nose, Mrs. K.”

“Anyway,” says Eddie. “I told her that if it’s too much house for her to keep up with and live in alone, we should downsize. We’ll get her some place with nearby neighbors, maybe a landlord or a housekeeper she can get used to who’s taking care of things... And she completely broke down. Screaming, crying- all of it.” Eddie huffs. “If I sell the house, it means I’m not ever coming back, and I don’t care about her, and we both die alone.”

Richie hums. “You just want her to be comfortable, Eddie. That’s the truth.”

“Do I?” Eddie has to doubt that. _“Am_ I trying to hurt her back? Because I took away the only companionship she’s had for forty years, bought an apartment in a city she refuses to drive in, with no guest room. Like I _don’t want her there.”_

Even as he says it, Eddie is disgusted with himself. His stomach feels like lead.

“No,” Richie says, gently. “You have a pull-out for her. You drive out to visit every week. You just don’t want to live together anymore.”

The back of Eddie’s throat prickles like he might cry. _No,_ he definitely will.

“I don’t wanna hurt anybody, I wanna take care of her, I just can’t do it like that anymore,” he whimpers. “I _can’t_ go back, but I told her-“

“Oh no...”

“I told her I’d find her a place with _two_ bedrooms, and a garage for me-“ Eddie chokes on his own disappointment. “I won’t go back, _not ever,_ but I let her think so and now she’ll always hope, and that’s so _cruel.”_

“I’m sure she backed you into a corner.”

“But I still said it, Richie.”

There’s a heavy silence in which Eddie is sure he can hear Richie shift uncomfortably in his seat. He must wonder if Eddie ever just tells him what he wants to hear to get along, since that seems to be the only way he knows to function.

“Richie-“

“Just- don’t drag it out,” Richie says to him. “Take it from me. You don’t want anyone to be more hurt than they have to be? Tell her sooner rather than later. For yourself as much as for her. Before you find her a new place, or else that will be an excuse.”

Well. Eddie wanted to talk to someone about it, and that someone happens to be pretty experienced at dissolving a household.

“Yeah. You’re right,” Eddie sighs, chastened.

Richie can’t let that pass, though. “Aww c’mon, Spaghetti! Don’t beat yourself up, you _remember_ what I do with people who beat up on you, huh? Punk!?”

Oh Lord.

“Yeah, I remember,” Eddie snickers. “You get caught in the middle and wind up with your sneakers thrown on the roof of the gymnasium.”

“Works every time,” Richie laughs. “I’m a lover not a fighter, and I _luhhhve_ being barefoot.”

“Mmm.” That sounds good, so Eddie starts working off his socks now that he’s a little more comfortable. “Well, thanks, I appreciate it. Anytime you wanna come play possum with me,” he tells Richie.

“How’s the 18th work for you?”

Eddie’s stomach flips. He thought for sure if Richie had something cooking in New York, it’d be a few months before he needed to be back. Time for scripts to be written, sets to be built, and all that.

“I can pick and choose whatever bookings I want, so-“

Richie jumps in- “Do you want me?”

“Yes.” Eddie doesn’t even think. The sky’s blue, water is wet, and he wants Richie all to himself. “How long will you be in New York?”

“Well, here’s the deal,” says Richie, settling in. “The NBC job is a recurring guest host on _The Tonight Show.”_

“Oh! Like Leno? Are they setting up to switch him in full time, but he doesn't wanna work every night?” Eddie gasps. “Or are they considering _someone else_ to replace Carson?”

Finally, the details! They were a little too busy making the most of the backseat to get around to this before Richie’s flight.

“Well, I can’t tell tales out of school,” says Richie, “-But the network wants fewer re-run nights, so they’re gonna try out yours truly. Every Tuesday- _Tozier Tonight!”_

 _“Weekly?”_ Eddie realizes.

“Every Tuesday through the end of the year except for Christmas and New Years.”

“Wow, that’s a really big deal!”

“-As long as I don’t tank ratings or cause another Great Toilet Paper Panic of ‘73, anyway...”

“Richie! I’m so proud of you!”

“Well shucks, I haven’t done anything yet!”

“I know you’ll be great!”

Oh, Eddie’s heart could burst. This will be huge for his career, especially if he can cement a longer run, or shore up studio support for a later project. If this works out, he’ll connect with all kinds of opportunities!

And he’ll be in New York- _consistently._

Richie giggles gleefully. “And obviously- more business coming your way, too! Unless it makes no sense for the Boss Man to be doing airport transfers- I totally get it if you wanna send a peon.”

“Gosh, maybe once in a while sending someone else will make sense, but as long as _I_ get to take you home,” Eddie blurts out. “I mean-“

But Richie is already rattling off his justifications. “I’ve got a stipend for a hotel and travel, obviously, so I figure keeping a driver instead of a room, if we're still on...?“

“Yeah! We are! Makes sense to me,” Eddie beams, awash in happy expectation.

“It’s _perfect,”_ Richie agrees. “I’ll figure out what flights I’m gonna make my regulars tomorrow and hammer out the next four months with Myra?”

“Wonderful.”

 _Four months._ That could do it. Lots of people get married and have babies after four months! Eddie’s own parents went from perfect strangers to engaged after five and they didn’t have the benefit of growing up together! Richie could definitely fall in love with him by the time the contract runs out.

“I think because I still have some filming for my other show out here, I won’t be able to do more than one night at a time until after break, but we’ll see,” says Richie. “It’s all balls in the air, and fingers crossed, right now.”

“I’m crossing ‘em!”

Richie chuckles to himself. “They okay for that?”

Eddie switches the phone to his left and wiggles his healing right hand in front of his face. He really does cross his fingers, for Richie. “Mostly! It doesn’t really bother me when I’m driving anymore, it just looks a little gruesome.”

“Want me to kiss it better?”

“You already tried that,” Eddie smirks. He can’t help but bring his fingertips to his lips, remembering so many sweet little tendings. Somehow Richie never made it feel like fussing.

“Well maybe it’s like how you have to do a full course of antibiotics,” Richie reasons. “Gotta keep at it!”

“Good thing we have another appointment, then.”

“Meanwhile, how about I call you same time next week?”

-

By their third Sunday night call, Eddie’s hand is good as new and Richie’s next visit is just around the corner. It makes coming clean with his mother just a bit more bearable, knowing there’d be someone proud rather than distraught on the other side. Unfortunately the drink Richie promised to buy him for his troubles gets rain-checked.

After the show, Richie shoots an urgent look to Eddie across his crowded dressing room. “Can everybody clear out?” he asks, while untangling from a battery pack. He passes it off to a PA who immediately vanishes. “Hey! I gotta change and you folks don’t wanna know what kinda murder I did to this shirt tonight! You’ll be made accessories after the fact!”

The people buzzing about with papers for Richie to take and hands to shake file out- Eddie along with them, until Richie hooks a finger into his to make him stay. He shuts the door behind the others and swings their connected arms like a jump rope.

“You heard Lassally, right?”

Eddie nods and doesn’t even have to force a smile. “It’s okay, really. The producers want to take you to dinner, you go.” If they like Richie and want to keep him coming back to New York, Eddie will be the last person to object.

“But you ‘n me already made plans,” Richie pouts.

“And we’ll keep the rest of them!” Eddie insists. “I don’t care about our reservation, just you...”

Though Richie wasn’t entirely joking about his desperate need to change out of his sweaty show clothes, Eddie slips right into Richie’s arms.

He squeezes Eddie against him. “You’re a peach, you know that? I’ll make it up to you,” he says, nibbling at his neck.

“You can make me a drink from my own stash,” Eddie grins.

NBC does Eddie’s job for him and carts Richie around for the night. As a consolation, Eddie keeps their reservation, though he doesn’t linger to dine solo for long- mostly he wants to bring home dessert for the two of them. They can still be ridiculous and spoon feed each other mille crêpes on the couch after all. When Eddie gets back, he changes into a comfortable sweater and has the lights dimmed to perfection by the time Richie buzzers up to the apartment from the front door. He had just appeared on Eddie’s TV, too. How’s that for comedic timing?

Richie saunters out of the elevators, hands in pockets, jingling their contents and looking devilishly cool, and Eddie doesn’t even let him get a word out before he’s kissing him and dragging him back inside. He’s overcome! He was able to keep his hands mostly to himself at the airport, and this morning while Richie showered before rehearsal, and at the studio- but now at the end of the day he walks in like he owns the place, and Eddie with it. How could he resist?

They shuffle-kiss their way to the couch- or the back of the couch- when they finally have to pause and look where they’re going unless they want to back flip over the furniture. Richie peeks at the TV playing the show and smirks at Eddie.

“You turned me on.”

“I hope so.”

With Richie’s new tenure, they fall into a pattern. They talk on the phone Sunday nights and make plans for something they’d like to do while Richie’s in town- sometimes it works out, sometimes it falls through, but Eddie _always_ meets Richie at Arrivals. They always joke their way through the parking garage to the car, and Eddie opens the door for Richie, and Richie pulls him in along with him for a while. Richie comes back to the apartment to freshen up for work and perhaps make a call or two, but definitely breakfast. He starts their day with whatever funny little ditty he can spin off of something Eddie said, singing and shimmying until Eddie has to remind him his eggs will go cold. Whatever he sings, it always gets stuck in Eddie’s head while Richie’s with the writers and at rehearsal. He hums to himself while he reconciles budgets and checks in with the office and Ma. He conveys Richie and whatever muck-a-muck of the week need chauffeuring to their lunch, and runs errands until taping. Richie always gives him a good seat and sweaty kisses in the dressing room. Sometimes there’s dinner together, sometimes there’s not. Sometimes they take in a show at a club afterward, or drinks with a colleague- but there’s always coming back to Eddie’s at the end of the night. They undress each other and touch and cling and try fingers and tongues and thighs until they get the knack for it, and the leaves outside Eddie’s windows change color. They like to lay in each other’s arms in the sunny morning for as long as hungry stomachs will allow, and then Richie will give a breakfast encore that keeps Eddie humming for days, even after he’s gone. That’s all he has, the rest of the week. Except for a suit at the dry cleaners, Richie never leaves anything behind.  
  


-  
  


One morning after, Eddie dries his hair while Richie shaves and trims. He keeps his razor on a facecloth to dry while he brushes his teeth and styles his own hair, then tucks it all away in his toiletry bag, and sets that with his suitcase. It strikes Eddie as notable this particular morning, because he’s not leaving until Thursday. He’s spending an extra day in New York, now that his show in LA has wrapped for the season and he has the time. He’ll have to unpack his toiletry bag all over again tonight to do his contacts and brush his teeth, and so on.

When Eddie turns off his hairdryer, he asks. “What if I bought you a second shave kit and a brush to keep here?”

Richie balks at their reflections in the mirror over the sink. “But it’s _your_ birthday,” he points out, eyelashes fluttering emphatically. "You should be the one showered in gifts!"

That’s another reason Richie is making a longer visit.

“The gift to me would be that you stop accidentally packing my facecloths,” Eddie smirks back.

Richie gives his hands a rinse of his pomade and flicks the drops of water at Eddie like a brat. “Who says it’s an accident?”

He always jokes about excuses to come back. It helps to quell the worried little voice in the back of Eddie’s head that notices how meticulously he packs. Richie must be used to one-night accommodations, having spent much of his career on the road. It’s a force of habit. It’s not that Richie is ever ready to end relationships.

This one is humming along happily. Things are good between them. They bicker in the same good nature as they always have, and they make up in more passionate ways than ever. Richie is still ‘officially’ with Monique, since she got her coveted romantic lead. That should last until her film is being marketed, one would think. That neither he nor Richie has defined what they’re doing in any specific terms seems to stem from a lack of need to describe their relationship to others, rather than an absence of affection. For his part, Eddie has only held back using the L word because he’s never said it to anyone before. He doesn’t know where it fits, when no one moment seems more deserving than another- he’s felt the way he feels about Richie for a very long, steady time. He assumes that in return Richie is deservedly gun shy, but there’s still plenty of time. It feels like their relationship is headed toward something, even if Eddie has trouble envisioning it along the traditional lines.

Maybe this is the version of dating they’re allowed- going out to breakfast and playing footsie under the table, walking in the park, and getting tickets to _A Little Night Music._ They don’t kiss on Bow Bridge and ask someone to take their picture like Eddie wishes they could, but Richie’s hand finds his in the dark of the theater, beneath his folded jacket.

“It’s a shame it’s closing, I wish I could see it again,” Eddie says, while they’re walking through Lincoln Center. He can feel his step sort of waltzing across the plaza, still in time with the music. Maybe because it was the show’s last night, it really felt like they left it all out on the stage. All that longing and regret and rekindled romance delivered right to Eddie’s lap, with a curtain call insisting _You’ll have to take it from here._

Richie reaches into his pocket and whips out a CD. _“Voil_ _à!_ _”_

“When’d you get this!?” Eddie takes the glossy case, admiring the starry blue art on the cover. “It was sold out by the time we got back to the lobby.”

“When I went to the bathroom during Act I,” Richie shrugs. “I knew it was gonna be good when they cast a Desiree who can actually sing. No offense to Glynis Johns- that old broad can drink anybody under the table and then dance on top it- but _real_ opera singers?” He psshaws.

“Thank you!” 

“Happy Birthday,” Richie grins.

Eddie goes ahead and wraps him in a hug. The bubbling of the nearby fountain masks the sound of him kissing his cheek, if anyone cares to notice.  
  
  


-  
  
  


Two weeks later, the phone rings at an inopportune time, when Eddie simply cannot talk and doesn’t wish to. He senses that it will be his mother, even before she finally announces herself to the answering machine.

 _"Eddie, you need to call me back, right away! This is an emergency!"_ she scratches over the speaker.

It always is.

Best nip it in the bud, so he can get back to what he’s doing. He withdraws from Richie, laying an apologetic kiss to his hip. With a sigh, he climbs up his naked body and drops down next to him in the bed to pick up.

“Hello, Ma?” Eddie clears his throat. It’s silly to think she’ll know what he’s been up to, but he can’t help but feel like he’s a little rubberlipped at the moment.

“Eddie! Your Auntie Barbara isn’t coming until Thanksgiving morning, after all-”

“Oh, is the drive too long for her to do all at once?”

“-So instead _you_ need to come over _now_ and do the pies that have to rest overnight-”

“Ma, I can’t,” Eddie cuts in. “My last trip to JFK is at six,” he says, eyeing Richie thankfully. He shoots a wink back at him. “I’ll be coming over after that. I can help you then.”

“You should come this morning, do your trip, then come back,” she insists.

There’s absolutely nothing she can say to get him out of this bed- not with Richie in it, and hours and hours to spend before his flight out to his sister’s. If Eddie’s going to be expected to spend the next four days with his mother and the aunties, he _needs_ some fortifying. Like Richie knows this, he presses a silent, supportive kiss to his shoulder.

“Ma, I’ll be happy to stay up as late as it takes to get everything ready,” says Eddie, thinking _Wow, one whole hour past bedtime,_ “-but I have to go now.”

“But-”

“I’ll see you at seven, Ma. G’bye.”

Eddie rolls and hangs up, then thinks better of it and leaves the phone off the hook entirely.

“Take no prisoners!” Richie giggles to himself while Eddie rolls back and slides on top of him again.

He frowns down at Richie. “I’m sorry, did that ruin it?”

Richie shakes his head gleefully. “Telling off your mother is one of my wildest fantasies. I’m all flustered now.” He shudders his body on purpose. “Too bad we couldn’t get a recording of that!”

“Wise guy.” Eddie rolls his eyes and gives Richie a kiss before he scooches back down.

“I’m serious!” Richie catches his hands together behind his head, marveling. _“Boss Man’s Greatest Hits!_ ‘Hangin’ Up On Mama’ will shoot right to the top of the charts. Say, could you sing me another right now? I’m in the mood!”

“No,” Eddie smirks. He feels around the bed to relocate their bottle of oil. “I don’t play for free.”

 _“Unff._ So hot, laying down the law,” Richie moans, as though Eddie is already back at it.

“Do you want some music on?” Eddie checks, before he gets his hand slippery again.

Richie stops joking around to look down at Eddie. “Nah, that’s all right. This is already perfect.”

“It is,” Eddie agrees, looking at Richie laid out before him. He’s all rosy and glittered with perspiration from having spent the better part of the morning horsing around in bed. Eddie slips between his legs and lowers his mouth to him again.

Richie is more inclined to mix his pleasures, across the board. Not that Eddie’s against pairing a silky bathrobe with a morning cuddle, or taking a game of Scrabble up to the roof to enjoy the night air- it’s just that it doesn’t occur to him. He tends to be single minded about whatever he’s doing, while Richie likes to shade in extra layers. He likes music while they drive, and dine, and fool around in bed. Eddie prefers just to be sucked off, while Richie likes to be fingered at the same time. He _really_ likes it, in part because he says Eddie is the only partner he’s had do it for him, taboo as it is. There’s no denying that it makes Eddie feel like he has some kind of secret leg up, despite his relative inexperience. Considering his zeal, he’s not surprised at all that Richie is the first one to be ready to take it further, and only too willing to assist. They’ve been teetering on the verge of going all the way for a while now, but the opportunities to spend the afterglow basking rather than sleeping or immediately catching a plane are few and far between.

 _“Oh_ _darlin'._ Can you add another?” Richie asks.

“Mmm.” Eddie already has two fingers stroking inside him which would usually do the job, if their sights weren’t aimed a little higher.

 _“Hhh!_ Yeah, like that,” Richie says, when he gets what he asked for. His breathing is short, words tripping in bursts as Eddie works both mouth and hand. “Then- then if you want to do it, I think we should go for it. Today. _God, I want you.”_

Of course. _Yes._

Eddie gives Richie’s cock a departing squeeze and pulls off. “I want to. I want _you,”_ he says, looking up at him. “Can we do it both ways?”

Richie smiles back at him. “Yeah, babe. We got all day.”

Heart hammering, Eddie focuses on opening Richie up, like he asked. His body flexes all over to accommodate, breath hitching, muscles stretching and toes curling. It makes Eddie feel like the strong and capable man Richie sees in him, having him at his mercy like this.

He kisses Richie’s knee. “I’ll take care of you. You tell me how it feels. We’ll go slow, keep it simple. The book said start with-“

“-Missionary, yeah yeah, I know! Don’t reinvent the wheel to ride your first unicycle! Tried and true- _ooo!”_ Richie writhes on his fingers. _“God,_ that already feels like your whole arm- I _gotta_ be ready by now.”

Eddie chuckles and spreads his fingers to test. “Is that okay?”

A pillow whips out from under Richie’s head and nearly into Eddie’s as he pulls it out in haste. “Come see for yourself, loverboy,” he says, bridging up on his feet to shove it under himself. “Come here! I want you so bad.”

The pinball Eddie calls a brain sets off around his skull. He’s all ringing bells and popping lights. “God, me too,” he tells Richie. “Okay- just give me a second.”

It takes him a minute to kneel right and get his shaking hands on the bottle of oil again so he can slick up. He trembles up until the moment he starts to push in.

“Oh, _yeah,”_ Richie groans. 

Eddie pulls himself closer by Richie’s hips, and it’s like sinking into a bed at the end of a long day. All of his tension is no match for the welcome he gets. He’s going to make Richie feel how perfect they are together. They can make each other so happy that it’s worth all the surrounding nonsense.

“Richie,” he huffs, inching in. “Oh, that’s so good.”

It’s so _tight._ Alarmingly so, even- far beyond his experience with getting off, stuck between Richie’s thighs. He'd think he’d want to pull away instinctively, like getting a hand closed in a door, but he just wants to fall in deeper. He loosens up, neck going limp, arms bending him low, everything liquid except the part of him easing into Richie. He rocks his hips, melting and breathing and feeling Richie do the same.

 _“Ghh!_ Your cock feels so good, baby. Uhn, _God_ Eddie.” He locks his legs around him, heels urging him on. “Oh my God.”

Eddie pushes deep, until he can bend them shoulder to shoulder. He hooks his arms to get a hold of Richie’s neck and bring him to a kiss. It’s as hot and slick as the rest of them, mixing together, wholly connected. They hold tight wherever they can, gripping and petting and soothing each other. It’s transformative- two in to one, movement into ecstatic, gasping noises and then into glowing, glorious heat. Eddie’s spine is aflame, a wick burning down, lower and lower.

“Richie, it’s too much,” he pants, when that warning sensation reaches his belly. So much for taking it slow. “Oh hell.” 

“It’s okay, buddy.” Richie rushes a hand to his hair, fingers digging in eagerly. He keeps pressing kisses to his face, flushing hot.

“Uhn, _shit.”_ They haven’t been at it very long at all. Eddie clenches his eyes. “Oh, oh, I can’t last...”

 _“Yeah,”_ Richie grunts and squeezes his thighs at Eddie’s sides. “Yeah, yeah. Come for me.”

“Nnk!” Eddie chases the feeling, thrusting harder despite his trepidation. He should take care of Richie first. He should be a better lover to prove that they’re a good match. “Please- please,” he begs. “You gotta first.”

“Says who?” Richie huffs and holds tighter, the faster Eddie goes. His mouth burns at Eddie’s ear, urging him. “Come on, baby. _Oh Eddie baby-_ come and then- I’ll do you. Everybody- _hhff-_ wins.”

“Oh God, oh God-“ Eddie’s hips seize as he reaches his climax.

“ _So good._ Give it to me, gorgeous.” 

The rush of it all is overpowering. Eddie just feels so much, so deeply, all throughout his body and he can’t let it out in words, so he bursts into tears. He tucks his wet face into Richie’s neck and tries to get a hold of himself before he pulls away. Richie finds his face and kisses him, putting a sweet stop to that.

“Hey, Casanova,” he says, brushing Eddie’s hair back. “‘A’ for effort, but you were never gonna go for an hour the first time you got it wet!” He chuckles at Eddie’s watery scowl.

“I wanted this to be as good for you as-“

Richie kisses him again. “This is _very_ good, darlin’. Fantastic. And it’s not over yet.” 

Eddie rearranges himself to kiss Richie more easily, and gives himself over to his control. With every sigh, every nibble, he can feel that Richie is still happy with him, still hungry for him. There are no disappointments here, just surprises. Before long, Richie’s hips get restless again, rutting himself into the sandwich of their bodies. He rolls Eddie beneath him and then slides down his body.

“Let’s start with that pillow,” he says, making Eddie comfortable. He sits back on his heels between Eddie’s splayed legs and gets a hold of their bottle of oil again. “You just relax, and try not to look _too_ beautiful. It’s torture! How’m I supposed to get anything done?”

Eddie flops an arm over his grinning face. “Does that help?”

“You’re gonna need more arms,” Richie says, giving him a tickle.

“Hey!” Eddie covers his sensitive belly.

“And these!” Richie giggles and tickles behind Eddie’s knees.

Eddie flails before he can go any further. “Not my feet!”

Richie pounces on him bodily and goes for his underarms instead, twitching his mustache into Eddie’s neck, too. When he’s got Eddie shrieking with laughter he hangs back to look at him again, pulling a very serious face. 

_“You- are- soooo beautiful... Ed-die!”_ he sings, using the bottle for a microphone. “ _Can’t you see-ee-ee-hee?”_

Before he can take another deep breath to continue, Eddie has to keep him on track. “Weren’t you in the middle of something?” he asks.

“Mm!” Richie pries the cap off the bottle with his teeth. “In the middle of your legs, yeah!”

Eddie snorts and hides his face in his arms again when Richie tries to swoop in for one last kiss. “No more distractions!”

“Yes sir, Mr. Boss Man.”

True to his word, Richie gets down to business. He teases Eddie with one finger, then two, then three, until he starts to get misty again. Being looked after by Richie in any way at all has a disarming effect on him, that no one else can touch. He always seems to know when to go slow, when rile Eddie up, and when to make him laugh.

“You all right?”

Eddie sniffs and nods his head. “You just make me feel so wonderful,” he says, trying not the let his lip wobble too much.

“Lotta that goin’ around.” Soft hands rub along Eddie’s thighs and tuck his knees. Richie positions himself, nudging at his hole. “Is that good?”

“Yeah.” Eddie takes a deep breath and lets it out again. “Before we do this, just-“

He should tell Richie how he feels.

“Geez, you’re right!” Richie snaps the bottle cap again to oil himself up. “Grease for the piece! I wanna give you a _smooth_ ride.”

“Oh!”

“-Since you’re such an expert professional, after all! Top of the game, state of the industry, the _crème de la crème-”_

Eddie snickers. “Are you done buttering me up?”

“Like the hot little biscuit you are,” Richie grins. “Ready?”

“Not until you kiss me.”

Richie leans over Eddie to kiss him again and again, while he feels his way around. He squeezes Eddie’s cheeks and massages his hard cock in his cleft until it meets its destination.

 _“Oh,”_ Eddie whimpers into his neck, incapable of thoughtful speech once Richie is inside him. All he can do is breath and try to bear down.

“That’s it, you got it,” Richie praises. He pushes in, slow, rubbing Eddie’s flank all the while. When he’s buried himself completely he scoops his arms under him and sighs. “You’re unbelievable, Eddie. _God._ You feel so, _so_ good- inside and out.”

_“I do.”_

He’s so happy in Richie’s arms, being adored, being the source of his pleasure. He doesn’t mind at all that Richie is more tempered than he could manage. This _is_ very good, for both of them. They move together lazily, like they’re wandering through each other’s bodies. They’re taking it all in. Hands roam from one landmark to the next and dwell on whatever they may find intriguing along the way. The scrubby hair on Richie’s thighs, the excited bud of nipples, the pool of sweat on Eddie’s breastbone- all part of the scenery. While they take their time, the soft scorch of sunlight from the window travels from one side of the bed to the other. It blinds Eddie to everything but Richie, haloed in gold.

After they finish Richie kisses his cheek, right below one of his squinting eyes. “Mmm, my sunshine,” he smushes. “I like this even better than tinted windows.”

“Then stop trying to get me naked in the car,” Eddie teases.

But he understands better than he cares to admit. They make do with so many late, tired nights and shadowy stolen moments. He wants to love Richie in broad daylight, like this.

-  
  


After Eddie showers, he finds Richie staring into his all but empty fridge. With the holiday keeping him away from the apartment for a few days and inevitably flooding him with leftovers, he resisted fully stocking up on his last grocery run. Eddie sneaks up as stealthily as he can on still-wobbly legs and ducks his head under Richie’s outstretched arm.

“Nothin’ cooking, huh?”

Richie jumps and gives him a squeeze. “After that work out I wanted to make you lunch! I figured I could rustle up some cold cuts, at least!”

“I planned on us eating out, I’m afraid.”

“Curses! Foiled again!”

But Richie doesn’t look too disappointed. With the way their schedule works they’ve only ever managed to go out to a leisurely lunch together two or three times, tops.

“Let me just dry my hair, and we’ll go,” Eddie chuckles. “Or you can sneak away and get take out and pretend you made it...”

“Oh, you didn’t notice the deep fryer in my luggage?” He shuts the refrigerator door and gathers Eddie’s hands into his and nibbles at his fingertips. “Mmm, chicken fingers.”

A few minutes later they’re ready to go. Richie bundles into the coat Eddie has convinced him to keep in New York, and waits for Eddie to come knot his scarf- his reward for not trying to tough out the colder weather. Eddie wraps the soft red material around Richie’s neck, and then himself, kissing him one last time before they head out the door.

When they get to the ground floor, the elevator opens to reveal a man waiting with both arms so full of evergreen branches and other floristry that it’s difficult to tell who it is.

Richie steps out and holds the door open for him. _“It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas-“_

“Oh, that’s lovely,” says Eddie, getting a whiff. He can see around now, it’s his neighbor David.

He hoists his armful. “I’m making wreaths! I’ll make you one!”

Eddie hasn’t given any thought to decorating for Christmas on his own this year. It’s only now dawning on him that he could start whatever traditions he likes. His family didn’t put decorations up until the very last moment, and Ma never let them have a _real_ tree or wreath on the grounds that it’d aggravate Eddie’s non-existent allergies- but he doesn’t have to play along with her anymore. 

“Aw, you don’t have to go through the trouble...”

“No trouble!” David smiles as he passes into the elevator. “I’m making some for my friends at Thanksgiving, I should have extra.”

Eddie sweeps up a fallen branch and jams it back into the bundle. “That’s so sweet!”

David blows his lips at a piece that’s poking into his face and Eddie laughs and fixes that too.

“Hey Eddie, do you have some place to go tomorrow?”

“Yeah he does,” grunts Richie, fighting the elevator door, repeatedly attempting to close.

“Well, come by anytime after! You can pick out your ribbon,” David offers.

Richie lets go, so Eddie tilts on one foot to call through the closing door. “I’ll be back Sunday?”

“See you then!”

He turns back to Richie with the lively scent still in the air. There are pine needles and possibilities everywhere. The spirit of the season and their morning together buoys him, and inspiration strikes.

“So, do you and yours have plans for around Christmas?” Eddie asks.

“Me and Mo are gonna break it off at a fundraiser,” Richie says, quite conversationally.

Eddie almost trips over his feet, following him to the door. “That’s... festive. What about your sister?”

“I’ll see what she’s up for when I get there tonight. I gotta call my agent, too. See how things are shaking out.”

They get out onto the sidewalk, where they can set off in just about any direction and find lunch, if one of them would pick a direction already.

“Well, let me know how it goes. I was thinking about getting out of New York for a bit,” Eddie says. “Maybe I could come out your way.”

“But then how would Santa know where to bring your presents!?”

Eddie laughs and leans into Richie, steering them to the left. “We’ll talk on Sunday.”  
  
  


-  
  
  


Eddie’s aunties aren’t all bad. They don’t think it’s funny when someone says _“It’s ten o’clock,”_ and he intones as solemnly as Richie might, _“Do you know where your children are?”_ but they play a riveting game of Rummy. Although they initially scold him for abandoning his mother, they are quickly dispelled by the suggestion that they come give her permanent company in New York. They’re all better cooks than Ma, and much too busy delivering the annual gossip about cousins to let her dominate the conversation, or Eddie, and that’s a blessing. Mostly the holiday passes in a whirlwind of cleaning and odd jobs around the old house, with the occasional assistance of an auntie, which is all well and good.

He makes it to Saturday before remembering why their arrival traditionally makes him uneasy. At this age, Eddie’s made his peace with the fact he’ll never make perfect contrition in the church’s eyes- ‘ _Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed’_ works fine for him- but Aunties Barbara, Lena, and Maria are the sort of old guard, pre-Vatican II Catholics who insist on making confession every week. They have Eddie drive the lot of them to the church after dinner, and it’s no comfort that Ma is just as put out by this as he is. She leads a life above reproach, _of course._ This is a waste of her time.

Usually Eddie’s ongoing difficulty with his mother is the centerpiece of his annual confession. There’s always plenty of anger there, and envy. Why couldn’t he have a normal mother? Why did his father have to die and leave him with sole responsibility for her? He could have had a completely different life. Does he love her as he should? What if preserving himself is only causing further damage?

Eddie resolves himself to try very hard to tell the truth here. It’s somewhat easier when he doesn’t recognize the priest, at least, but God the Father, the most steadfast parent he has ever known already knows what’s in his heart.

“I take the Lord’s name in vain. I couldn’t guess how often in a year. I stole an apartment out from under an expecting young couple with a higher bid. I hope they found a good place.” That one might just be Manhattan real estate and not a sin, but Eddie feels bad about it, regardless. “Uhm, I struggle with honoring my own mother,” he continues, when the priest says nothing. He just hums and Eddie wonders if he just heard the other side of this. “She has some kind of psychological illness, and we can be very hurtful to one another. I get angry that she’s not easy to love- that I have to be the bigger man, that I gave up so much of my life to make her happy and it seems like she _can’t be._ I lie to her, to manage. Maybe less, these days, but only because I _left_ her to live on my own, uh, a few months ago. I still see her every Sunday, but I don’t know if I do it out of love, or fear. Like if I don’t make space, she’ll force her way into my new life and ruin that, too, because I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, and I don’t want her to touch it. I actually have _friends_ now, and a-“

And here is where Eddie has learned in the past that while he believes in God’s unconditional love for him, there’s a certain way he has to put things, here. He glances at the obscuring screen in the booth, and the silhouette on the other side nods.

“I have a lover,” he says, ambiguously. “So- I’m sleeping with someone outside of marriage. Not that either of us is married,” he clarifies. “But... not to each other,” he gulps. “I don't feel bad about it. I know it’s not what you want to hear, Father. Well- I _don’t_ know, actually. That’s the thing- I’ve never been like this with anyone else, ever before. I don’t regret that and... I know I won’t stop.”

The priest waits a moment when Eddie runs out of steam, then clears his throat. “It sounds like you’ve gone through a lot of changes recently.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I’m sure God rejoices that you’ve made new friendships in this time apart from your mother, but remember He wants you _both_ to have love. Don’t leave her behind," the priest warns. "For your penance, say two rosaries, and look for opportunities for honesty and healing with your mother. And as you continue to struggle with temptation, consider making a Holy commitment.”

Somehow Eddie fights back a laugh of nervous relief. “Thank you, Father. I will.”

After their parting prayers, he rejoins his aunties and his mother, kneeling in the pews. He circles around to get a spot beside Ma, and though he’s barely addressed her all week without having been spoken to first, he gives her arm a squeeze.

“Lets pray for each other, Ma,” he whispers.

-  
  
  


Auntie Barbara had a bad experience with the bus coming down, so Eddie drives her back upstate the next evening. Of course, at the late hour Ma volunteered his service, they couldn’t help but hit post-holiday traffic while going through the city. When he drops her off, he declines the kind offer to stay in his cousin’s old room, absolutely jam packed with dolls. He’d rather drive through the night and miss a second dose of morning traffic getting back home. It’ll give him a chance to do some peaceful thinking, anyway.

By the time he gets into his apartment, he can’t fathom doing anything but dragging himself directly to bed. “I’m too old for this,” he sighs, flopping in. 

When he wakes up again it’s light out, and he finally notices the pile up of messages on his answering machine. There’s one from Ma that must’ve been left while he was en route to her for Thanksgiving, a cheerful message from Myra, and-

_“Hey Boss Man. You must not be back in yet. I guess I’ll crack open the ol’ Bartender’s Guide and pick out a really complicated drink to pour myself. Later ‘gator.”_

Oh, Eddie completely lost track of time on the road, or else he would have pulled off to a rest stop to at least say goodnight! It might’ve lifted his spirits for the rest of the drive.

The machine beeps and rolls on to the next message.

_“Hi. Uhh. I figure you’re not gonna call back tonight. But if you don’t want to- uh. I can figure something else out for Tuesday. Bye.”_

Sounds like one complicated drink turned into several while Eddie was driving home. Now his stomach sinks, checking the time. It’s only five in California, much too early to call what will certainly be a hungover Richie.

Or maybe not?

Eddie pulls the phone into his lap in the bed and dials. “Three, two, nine, two...”

They’ve never missed a Sunday night call before, but this is a disturbing reaction. What on earth does ‘figure something else out for Tuesday’ mean? Is Richie thinking of canceling and getting a room instead of staying with him? They only have four more visits left on Richie’s current contract. Eddie hasn’t had a chance to tell Richie how he feels yet, like he’s decided he will, _this week._

The phone on the other end picks up and it sounds like it takes a drag across several surfaces on the way to Richie’s face. Something fell off a table, certainly. “Shit,” he huffs. “Hello?”

“Hi, Richie- I’m _so_ sorry, I got in so late I fell asleep the instant I sat on the bed.”

“Uh huh.” Richie’s mumble is gruff. Hopefully that’s just sleepiness and a headache talking.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you- _tomorrow,”_ Eddie realizes, as he pushes on. “It sounds like there might be some weather overnight, I don’t know if that will affect your flight, but I’ll be there to pick you up. I have an invitation to drinks, so I might skip your taping, but-”

A bitter laugh interrupts his rambling. “Yeah. You’ve seen the show in person a few times now, I guess it lost its luster.”

“What?” Eddie frowns. “I can still-”

“If you’d rather do whatever, I can get a room and a cab.”

“Richie, I’d rather see _you,”_ Eddie says, really worried now. “What’s going on? What happened?”

There’s a groan and a sigh, as Eddie imagines Richie rolling from the nightstand where he keeps his phone to flat on his back. _“I_ happened. I did it again, right? _The Richie Routine,”_ he says, miserable and still a little slurred. “You got what you wanted out of me, same as Mo and the network. They don't really want me, no one ever really _wants_ me. I’ve been married _four times!_ You’d think I’d learn! It’s like my sister said- I just _throw_ myself at things regardless, thinking if I want it bad enough...”

“Richie!” Even through the gumminess of sleep, Eddie’s eyes sting. “I don’t know what anyone else said, but I do, _I want you,_ I-“ 

Eddie stops himself, because he can’t possibly say it over the phone. Not the first time.

“When we started this... we _agreed,”_ Richie says, sounding so small. “If you wanted to see someone else... you’d warn me.”

_He thinks that’s why you didn’t call. You were out all night. He thinks that’s why you want to skip his taping. He thinks now that you had sex, that you’re done with him, ready to apply the knowledge elsewhere. That he’s not worth the courtesy of dumping. Married four times, cheated on, discarded even by a fake fianceé, and who knows what else!_

The same way as Eddie was conditioned by over-attention, Richie has been beaten down by rejection. How did it take so long for him to notice? Richie may play off his many heartbreaks with a casual air, but only because taking them seriously would reveal how wounded he really is. How insecure he feels. So many times, he’s been just an afterthought.

Well, no more!

Eddie sits up straighter in the bed. “Sweetheart,” he says, gentle as Richie has been for him in the past. “I wish I called you every night, but that wouldn’t even _compare_ how often I thought of you. I wanted to make you the answer every time someone asked me a question. I waited for you whenever a funny moment passed and no one had a good joke. Before you came back into my life, I missed you for _years,”_ he says. “I would go to your taping, spend dinner watching you reenact every line, then turn the TV on for a third go-around. I can’t get enough of you, Richie. I don’t want to see anyone else.”

There’s a breathless pause, and Eddie wishes he could reach through the phone, or at least have Richie see the pleading in his eyes. _Please believe._

“...You really didn’t spend the night with _‘fascinating’_ David?” Richie checks, sheepish.

Eddie snorts. “No! _Him?_ Is he even-” _That’s beside the point, Eddie!_ “I drove my Auntie Barbara back upstate last night because she’s terrified of coach bus toilets,” he explains, still laughing. “And the drinks on Tuesday is a retirement thing for Enzo, one of my drivers. I can take him to dinner another night.”

“You don’t hafta skip drinks- I don’t _own_ you, Eddie! I just-“ Richie’s voice cracks. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“No, I know.” When Eddie shakes his head a relieved tear rolls loose.

“Baby, I feel like an idiot.”

“Then I’ll have to make you feel better tomorrow,” Eddie promises. “But what happened? You said something with the network?”

Richie sighs. “Yeah, uh. Kind of a chutes heavy game of Chutes and Ladders. Screw whatever I’m not supposed to talk about, uh- when they signed me on, they sold it to me like they were on the fence about Jay being the new host. Like it was purely a ratings race. Get the numbers! Get the reviews! _All this may be yours!”_ he booms, illustratively. “And Tuesdays did _great._ Runaway ratings. People were picking up what I was putting down, so my agent goes back to the producers and says, look, we all know Johnny isn’t leaving just yet, things are going good, we don’t have to announce anything- just give us a few more dates to bring home for Thanksgiving so the family can badger us when we’re gonna put a ring on it!”

Eddie’s heart squeezes. “Oh Richie...”

“Cause I gotta plan around the gig, right? But they said, oh no thanks! We already scared Jay into signing cheaper than we were expecting, but you can keep the Tuesdays you have!”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, wishing he could do anything at all to help. He knows a handful of contract lawyers, and of course he thinks Richie deserves what he was promised, but that’s not how these showbiz needley wheeling and dealings go. It’s all insinuations.

“All this happens on the phone at my sister’s, yeah? But I still got my pecker up!” Richie insists. “It’s the holiday, I just saw _you,_ I got my niece to chase around the yard... I don’t even bitch about it to Carol! Then she asks me why I didn’t bring Mo since we’re, ya know, _supposedly engaged,_ and its family time, and all I wanted was to say, well boy howdy Sis, have I got news for you about who I’m _really_ seeing! So I figured- test the waters. I tell her me and Mo are splittin’ up because she thinks she’s a lesbian. See how she reacts.”

“Oh dear.”

“She’s not bent outta shape about the homo angle, though,” Richie laughs hysterically. “No! _Richie, you did it again!_ _You keep doing this! Why do you think everything falls apart when you rush in faster than anyone can say boo!”_

“-And then, I left you hanging,” Eddie concludes. “I'm sorry. We’re not like that, Richie.” As far as he’s concerned, they’ve been headed towards each other for years.

“It wasn't you. It was just bad timing and a little too much booze,” Richie acknowledges. He sounds calmer, now that he’s got it all out. “I got too in my own head.”

Eddie wants so desperately to give him the words to keep in mind, when and if he goes there again.

_Tomorrow._

“We’ll work it out,” Eddie assures him. “When you get here we’ll talk and figure out what we can do after your contract is up. You know you don't have to pay me to spend time with me, right?”

Richie chuckles. “I know, but I had to get around New York somehow. Better you swearing at Ed Koch than me.”

“I don’t swear in front of clients,” Eddie protests.

“Yeah, what gives?”

“It’s inappropriate.”

“Mmmhmm,” Richie hums. “So what about when I sucked you off in the back of the Lincoln?”

Eddie squeaks. “I- I shouldn’t have billed you for that hour!” 

“In a way, you billed NBC.”

“After how they treated you, serves them right!”

“Facilitating lewd entertainment- this feels like something the FCC oughta know about,” Richie says, in a chin rubbing voice.

Once he has Richie laughing and comfortable again, Eddie doesn’t feel so bad about heading into work and sending Richie back to sleep. They can conspire tomorrow, when they can do it together.  
  


-  
  


Eddie doesn’t bother with his livery at the airport, even if Richie is a fan. This is personal business, after all. He waits at Richie’s gate with his winter coat in one hand, and their itinerary in the other. The worst of the storm blowing down from Canada hasn’t quite reached them yet, but it’s delayed most of the flights coming into JFK, all the same. With any luck, it might come dump the city with snow and give Richie an excuse to stay longer.

While 10:00 AM: SHOPPING, 20TH ST BTWN 5TH-6TH is still a slim possibility, the silver shape of a Boeing 767 comes along through the fog. Eddie can just feel that it’s the right one. He hugs Richie’s coat in his arms until he can replace it with the man himself.

“Oh good idea,” Richie grins, as Eddie circles behind him to help him on with his coat. He squats. “Piggyback ride’ll warm me right up.”

“If you think it’ll get us into the city any faster,” Eddie smirks back.

They catch hands for a moment after Richie finally slips into his sleeves. Fingers circle around Eddie’s wrist and a thumb brushes a would-be kiss. Eddie gets a chance to grab him back when pointing out which direction he parked the car.

“Left, and way aways back.”

Richie hoists his garment bag with a withering cry of anguish. “Why do you always park so far awaaay?” he whines.

“Gee, I wonder!” Eddie skips off the curb.

He darts across the drop off lane to the island between the exit and the garage, spinning in his step with _chase me, catch me_ feet. It’s too old and familiar a game for the boy in Richie not to recognize. He follows after Eddie, over a knee-high wall, between cars, to a pillar marked B1.

He rounds on Eddie, herding him to the far side, away from the eyes of people leaving the terminal. “Hiya cutie,” he kisses Eddie quick.

Eddie chases him to the next pillar deeper in the garage and does the same. “I missed you.”

“Nah, you hit my mouth all right,” Richie says, wrinkling his nose at Eddie. He takes off again, before Eddie can wipe that smart look off his face.

“So what are you shopping for?” Eddie asks, hurrying after his next chance. “The holidays?”

“I’m hoping to make a purchase by then, yeah!”

“Should we put it off until tomorrow? I was sort of hoping we’d make it back to my place before rehearsal...”

They have talking to do. And kissing. More kissing than is probably wise to do behind this third pillar.

“Nuh uh,” Richie mutters against his mouth. “Kind of a ‘by appointment’ thing.”

Off he goes.

“Sounds expensive,” Eddie reasons aloud. He tries to visualize that block and recall the shops, since he’s definitely been there before. “Is it for you, or someone else?”

Richie turns on his heel and throws his hands up in the middle of a lane, walking backwards. “What is this, Twenty Questions?”

Eddie stalks after him. “Yeah. Is it bigger than a bread box?”

The rows have thinned out. They’re just a few steps away from the car. Eddie doesn’t see anyone else moving around at a glance. He doesn’t panic when Richie suddenly stops and they bump together and he swoops an arm around him. His fingers curl into his camel hair collar, starting to catch the flakes of snow that drift through the open side of the building.

“It better be,” he says, and then he kisses Eddie right there. 

“Mm!”

Richie pulls back but he doesn’t let go of Eddie, crowded in his arms with his garment bag. “Sorry, I don’t want you to figure it out, yet!”

Eddie squints at that. “I’m nowhere near close!”

“You really don’t know?” Richie tries to check the garage around them again, but Eddie reaches up and turns his face back. “I figured by the address...”

 _“Tell me,”_ Eddie persuades with another kiss. If someone gives them grief he can always back over them with the Cadillac.

Richie sighs as he parts from Eddie, unable to put up a resistance any longer, the more they wear it away. “That’s Donna’s office,” he says. “I’m apartment shopping. I’m not done with New York just because _Tonight Show_ doesn’t want me. I’ll pitch something else! And... no matter what happens, I don’t want to be done with _you_ either,” he says, finally.

There’ll never be a better moment to join Richie on the limb he’s so wary of. Eddie smiles up at him.

“Move in with me.”

Richie blinks, stunned speechless for once in his loudmouthed life.

“I love you,” Eddie says. “I know you’re scared of throwing your heart at someone without waiting for them to love you back first, but you never had to wait with me. I’ve loved you for so long, Richie.”

He visibly swallows, then. “You mean that? Not just because I bulldozed you into it?”

Eddie summons up his most Boss Man authority. “I’m in love with you, Richie Tozier- whether you like it or not.”

Richie’s knees sort of buckle as he lets go of a held breath. As he dips, it's the perfect opportunity for Eddie to wrap his arms around Richie’s neck and kiss him for everything he’s worth. Chilled extremities, foggy glasses, and risk aside. It’d be so much worse to let Richie go another moment unsure that he is deeply loved in return.

Richie licks his lips, gathering surety. “I love you too, Eddie. I _really_ do," he says. "This is the best gig I ever had.”

Eddie glances at his car. “This is up there for me, too,” he grins.

“But if I move in with you, we have _gotta_ do something about the bedroom not having walls-“

“I know, I know,” Eddie waves. “Guests. _My mother...”_ He shudders to think. 

“That too, but I have _a lot_ of framed art, and your place is all windows.” Richie points his fingers together in a square in front of Eddie’s face. “Mmm! So beautiful, it _has_ to be pinned to a wall,” he teases, despite Eddie giving him a swat to the ribs. 

Eddie steps away to open the trunk. “Hurry up. We’re gonna keep that appointment with Donna, invite her and Myra to dinner to make up for a lost broker fee, and have her recommend a good contractor.”

Richie slings his bag in and claps his hands. “I can't wait to see how Santa fits drywall in my stocking for Christmas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guess what... There’s a sequel in the works, so subscribe to keep an eye out for that ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Come check more of my reddie stuff out on twitter and tumblr @stitchyarts!
> 
> There is now a sequel to this fic! Check it out!


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